


Burn, and Fall Again

by secret_samadhi



Category: Supernatural
Genre: !Feelings!, Aftercare, Angels are Dicks, Archangel!Cas, BAMF!Cas, Biting, Blood, Body Horror, Bottom!Cas, Breathplay, Canon Divergent, Cas watches Dean rake leaves, Cas' Dom Eyebrow, Cock Warming, Dean Has Self-Esteem Issues, Dean Talks About Feelings, Demon!Dean, Dirty Talk, Dream Sex, Dreams, Dreamsharing, Edging, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Enthusiastic Consent, Established Relationship, Exhibitionism, First Time, Godstiel - Freeform, Hell Fic, Hurt/Comfort, Leather, Light Bondage, M/M, Magical Tattoos, Mark of Cain, Pining, Porn with Feelings, Rape, Rough Sex, Self-Harm, Smut, Soul Bond, Soul Sex, Suicidal Thoughts, Tattoos, Top!Cas, Torture, Wing Kink, bottom!Dean, dom!Dean, fallen!cas, god!castiel - Freeform, rapist!alastair, ritual suicide (minor unnamed characters), sub!cas, switch!cas, switch!dean, top!dean, trueform!Cas
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2018-05-13
Packaged: 2018-07-12 18:12:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 22
Words: 262,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7117081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secret_samadhi/pseuds/secret_samadhi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Mark of Cain has taken Dean, and he rules, in Hell, with Castiel, Fallen, beside him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Pit

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Game of God](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4592838) by [seperis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seperis/pseuds/seperis). 



> This fic was strongly inspired by chapter 10 of The Game of God, book 4 of Down to Agincourt, and its companion piece, Hall of the Mountain King, both by Seperis.

Castiel has a wall of knives, and he sharpens every one. A knife for peeling the skin back from a finger is narrow, and pointed, short. A knife for disarticulating an arm is wider, heavier, and has no point. A knife for scoring tooth and bone is long and thin. Steel, silver, ivory, gold, ceramic, they are placed impeccably, in organized rows, shortest to longest, lightest to heaviest. All sharp and glittering, like diamond. He is sharpening a hooked knife now, good for the--removal-- of eyes from the orbital socket. Careful strokes of the whetstone, a cloth to remove the filings. It is hot, always too hot, in the Pit, so he works with no shirt, with sweat dampening his hair and dripping down his face. His hooked knife dulls from its scrape on bone when it twists in the eye socket. It takes a lot of twists to take the hone off of steel, and this knife was dull as clay, when he began. He strokes, and then tests its edge on the nail of his left thumb. A millimeter slices off, easy.

The earth rumbles, and Castiel's hand slips. He cuts, deep, into the flesh of his left hand, above his index finger. He takes no time at all to examine the cut, because he doesn't care. Because it is thundering in the Pit, and that means that the Master is home. And he has been gone, gone too long. Leaving Castiel alone, with nothing to do but sharpen his knives. Careful, a tremor belying his calm, he puts down his knife, the whetstone, takes the cloth off his shoulder. He brushes the sweat-damp hair back from his face, and strides, long, and quick, to the inner sanctum, where the Master will appear, home to him again.

It is hard to see in the Pit. It is not entirely dark, but where there is light, it is red, and it flickers, and shadows overlap, flickering also, even where none should be cast. Castiel moves surely, anyway, hastening, he knows the way. The air is heavy, in anticipation. Humid, not with water, with blood. Heavy air, bloody and burning. Char, and ashes, and iron, and no breeze.   He breathes it in, and it coats his lungs, and comforts him. Copper and heat, now his comfort, now familiar in the air. In Heaven the air was clear, always, crisp like a mountaintop.

He arrives in a cavernous chamber, circular, a mile wide, ceiling arched to a single point. Walls of black obsidian, floor of black marble, inlaid with red, whorls, sigils, glowing with a sluggish throb. Dominated now by a grey cloud, a hundred feet high, alive and roiling, black lightning striking and charging the air, shaking the ground. The screams of souls on the rack come to a crescendo, and silence when the cloud dissipates with a final lightning crack.

Castiel's breath catches, in awe and desire. Where the cloud whirled, now, is the Master, more terrifying and more beautiful by far. He appears, feet bare, black jeans tight on him as a blister. Smooth, perfect chest planed with muscle, bare and gleaming in the heat of the Pit, heavy breaths rising and falling from the effort of his travel. Black wings spread out majestic behind him, a 10 foot span of shadow and power before they fade from this plane. The tattoo that names his powers and claims them, subjugates them and binds them to him, snakes from behind his left ear down his neck and to just below his left collarbone. His mouth is parted in the charged air, his head angled down. A face that destroys, that devastates with its beauty, and within it, perfection exceeding even the profound perfection of his body: green eyes, flashing.

Castiel prostrates himself. And bleeds in to the ground. He cannot see what is happening, his head cradled in his arms, but he can hear the Master's steps, bare feet slapping on marble, as he approaches. A hand, hot as the forge, takes hold of his hair at the root, and pulls. "Rise." One word. It's quiet, in power that cannot be disobeyed. And, just, turned over on the back of the tongue with desire. Castiel rises.

"You're back." He doesn't get an answer. He gets a kiss that bruises his mouth and makes him feel like he is being eaten alive. He gets heat, the kind you find in a car with the windows up on a hundred degree day, the kind that doesn't let you breathe. His back arches and his hands press so he can feel more as he surrenders to the kiss. As he surrenders everything. "Dean," he breathes, smearing a hot streak of his still-weeping blood on the Master's cheek.

A hand snaps up, fast as a snake, strong as a vise, and holds his bleeding hand still. "You're injured."

"I don't care."

Dean stares at him, pins him with narrow eyes. He pales, under that glare. He should care, it tells him. Because he has injured what belongs to Dean He is not nothing. It matters if he hurts, if he bleeds. Because he is Dean's. All of him. The blood that drips onto Dean's wrist now, the heart that pumps it forth, the skin that it seeps through. "I'm sorry. I was sharpening my knife and it slipped when the thunder... when you..." Dean's eyes narrow farther. "I'm sorry."

Grip still like steel, Dean raises the bloody hand to his mouth and presses his tongue to the cut, a rough lap. His saliva burns Castiel's skin, like acid, but Dean holds back his hand and stares at it, until the cut heals. "I hate it when you're hurt," he whispers, low, turning the hand over to check it for any other injury. "I'm the only one that gets to break the skin."

Cas shivers, and closes his eyes.   A silence follows; in it he breathes through his mouth and leans towards Dean, just a degree more in to his space, as Dean rubs a thumb over the now perfect flesh of Castiel's hand, intent, focused on reassuring himself that no other hurts mar Castiel's skin.

He wants Dean. Has missed him. Wants him to take him right there, rough, on the hot marble floor. Crush him and tear him apart. Break the skin. And Dean will, if he leans in to him just another degree more. But then... later, he will stare at the bruises and go quiet, and not say anything but Castiel will see guilt in his eyes, guilt that he took Castiel like that, that he took his angel in the grime on the ashen floor, like the demon got the better of him; he will feel guilt that he didn't wait and lay him down on the black silk of their bed and be gentle with him, reverent and slow like wind on the water. Castiel does not want to see that vacant hurt in a Dean's eyes; no matter how much he wants, how good it would feel. So.

"What news of your enemies?" His eyes are still closed, clenched tight, now, and his voice is thin, but it doesn't tremble. "What did you learn when you were away?" Dean turns abruptly, but doesn't release the hand clamped around Castiel's wrist. He paces towards the back of the hall, towards doors that open onto rooms of weapons, and books, and artifacts. Castiel does not know yet which will be needed, and allows himself to be led. "Lucifer?"

"Still caged."

"Crowley?"

"Still spineless. He won't cause any trouble. And what do I care; even if he does he's better than the alternatives." Castiel nods. True. "He wanted to fuck me."

"He has always wanted that."

"I didn't let him."

"Of course not," Castiel replies, dry as an autumn leaf. That Crowley wanted Dean isn't news. Dean is stalling. Castiel braces himself.

"And your brother?"

Dean doesn't stop, he doesn't even slow. His breath doesn't catch. "He threw holy water on me, tried to trap me. He said he's going to cure me, not stop until he finds a way."

Castiel nods again. "He doesn't understand that you like the disease."

Dean's head dips, in acknowledgement. "He said he was going to save you, too. From me, from this," he gestures at the walls of the Pit. "Try to find a way to make you an angel again."

"I don't want that." Dean knows this, but Castiel tells him anyway, his feelings too raw and too close to the surface to be contained. "In Heaven, I was a slave. I never had a choice. I never had... You. They wouldn't have let me have you. They wouldn't have let me touch you." Anger. His hands clench, and un-clench. In Heaven, there was always enough light, and it was always clear and pure. He wouldn't go back.

"I tried to tell him. He wouldn't listen, said it wasn't me talking. He didn't understand. He doesn't understand." Dean still doesn't slow, but frustration creeps in to his voice. "I told him we didn't need saving, that he could join us. That's when he threw holy water on me."

"Did you hurt him?"

"Of course not."

"Sam is very resourceful. He might oppose you."

"We're going to neutralize him." So, the room of books, then, not weapons.

"If you bring him here, he could be dangerous, to you."

"Not as dangerous as on the surface. Trust me, I know Sammy, if we leave him up there in the bunker in research mode he's going to come up with something we're not going to like."

Probably true. "If you can summon him, I can make him a... place. In the rock. No entrance. A cube, completely smooth, no sharp edges. Nothing in it but... A shelf? A blanket? He won't hurt us. Or himself. He won't like it, being confined. But he will be safe." Castiel knows that Dean worries about Sam; his care for Sam defined him as human and it stays with him even now. Dean worries that he might have to hurt Sam. If Sam tries to take their power, make them again what they once were (weak, vulnerable, not strong enough to hold on to each other). If Sam calls upon some cataclysmic power (Death, Darkness) to try to weaken them. If Sam tries to sacrifice himself. Sam will be unhappy in an empty bubble in an obsidian wall in the Pit of Hell, but he will be safe. And alive. And better off than if he were stuck with those 'dickbags in Heaven' (Dean's words, though Castiel agrees) for all of eternity.

"Safe. Yeah." Now Dean pauses, shakes his head and shoulders, like he's trying to clear cobwebs away. "Yeah. That'll be good, Cas." He starts walking towards the library again. "But we gotta figure out how we're gonna summon him first. Bunker's tight."

"But not impenetrable. You'll find a way. You always do."

Absently, "Yeah, I always do."

*****

When Dean took the Pit, its library was dark and smoky, low ceilings above scrolls of human skin written in blood, books with covers of bone that screamed when they were opened. Now it looks exactly like the public library in Kansas City circa 1985, complete with boxy computer terminals that have monitors that glow blue and white and keyboards with keys that actually click when you press them. Such is the nature of Dean's power. They sit at a conference table, finished in peeling vinyl printed to look like wood. In true Midwestern 1980s fuck-the-environment style, the library is also massively, deliciously, air-conditioned. In fact, it is the only air-conditioned room in all of Hell. Behind Castiel, an analog clock ticks loudly on a windowless, beige wall. In Heaven, there were no clocks, it was always all times, and none, the concept meaningless in a dimension of eternity. Castiel likes the clock. It reminds him that he is real, that this is not all some fevered dream. Sometimes, when Dean is gone, he will come to the library, and lay his head on the vinyl table, and let his skin cool while he listens to the clock, ticking, ticking, ticking.

They have been reading for several hours now, and books cover the conference table. None of them have an answer to the bunker's warding. Castiel wants to sweep them all off. Lay back on the empty table and pull Dean down on top of him, by his neck. Hold him there and kiss him and grind against him until he groans. He looks at Dean, and it is in his eyes, but Dean is distracted, and doesn't see it. Thinking about Sam. Thinking about how to bring him here, and keep him safe. Castiel wants to solve this problem, so he can feel Dean's hands on him again.

"Why don't we just wait until he leaves the bunker? No wards on the outside."

"He's not gonna leave until he has a plan. And if he has a plan, we don't want to cross his path."

"Well, why don't we make him leave before he has a plan?"

Dean considers this. "Go on,"

"Set it on fire. Plant a news story that gives him a case. Send a demon to Lebanon on a crush kill destroy. There's a hundred ways."

"He'll see through a demon. He'll put out a fire." Dean taps a pen on the book in front of him. It's a chewed Bic rollerball with "Kansas City Public Library" written on its side. "But a case... Maybe a case. A werewolf off the rails in bumfuck Nebraska, that might pry him out. It might. He's forever and always taking cases when the world is about to fly off its orbit. Can't stand sitting by while people get hurt." There is pride in his eyes when he says this, despite the irritation in his voice.

"So, we peel some wolf-obsessed serial killer off the rack-- we must have one, at least-- and we send him to Nebraska with an iron claw and a big gulp full of amphetamines and wait. We can put a demon on the bunker to tell us when Sam leaves-- If we have one that's not stupid enough to get caught. Big if there, maybe Crowley will do it. His crush on you is embarrassing, he'd probably do it on spec. And who knows, maybe Sam will kill him." Acid in this last.

"We'll send Baal. Slightly stupider, more expendable."

"As far as I am concerned, there is no one in Heaven or on Earth that is more expendable than Crowley."

Dean closes his book and pushes it away. "You don't like it that he wants me."

"Everyone wants you," Cas hedges, sulky.

Dean peers at him, knowing. His voice is low, baiting, and his mouth curls when he replies, teasing: "He imagines my tongue in his mouth. He imagines me on my knees, at his feet."

Cas doesn't play along. "I hate it." He is seething. "I hate it that he can have you, even in his mind. I hate it that he can even imagine you inside of him. I HATE it, Dean. I want all of you. In every time. In every place. Real, or imagined. He shouldn't dare." He repeats this, under his breath, dangerous. "He shouldn't dare."

Dean looks at Cas with mild concern now, unsettled at the reaction he provoked. "I left you alone to sharpen your knives for too long."

"You did." A pause. "I want to take his eyes." Cas clenches his hands, remembering the heft of his hooked knife, "And then fuck you, loud, so when he tries to imagine you, all he can see is me and my knife, and all he can hear is you crying my name."

"Christ, Cas. Just. Fuck." Dean snakes a hand around the back of Castiel's neck, research forgotten now, and jerks him forward for a rough kiss; but Cas is too far away to accommodate this movement from where he is seated, and his body tumbles jerkily forward, into Dean's lap. It's awkward, in the 1985-era municipal library chair, knees pressed into thighs, no way to get leverage, to get contact, and Castiel moans in frustration. "Cas," Dean pleads, and then grips Castiel by his thighs and lifts him to his feet. Dean rises, too, and circles Cas' biceps with iron fingers; he propels Cas backwards with pressure of hands on arms and mouth on mouth until he is crushed against the wall under the ceaselessly ticking clock, and Dean is crowded in close, insinuated between Cas' legs, hot in his space, breath on his face. Dean's hands range, eager, greedy, on Castiel's body, skimming light, skimming everywhere, remembering the topology of Cas' arms, his back, finding how long his hair has grown down his smooth neck. They have not touched, like this, since before he was away. He wants to feel Castiel again, and Castiel wants to be felt. He draws Dean in, hips tilted, eyes closed so he misses nothing, captures the nuance of every sensation, every drag of Dean's fingers and press of his palms. He has been empty while Dean was away, starving, gnawing on memories of Dean's touch, and now he wants to feed again.

"Dean," he breathes. "You feel..." He doesn't continue because there are no words for how Dean feels.

Castiel is held fast by the wall, by strong hands on hips holding him tight while Dean kisses him to bruise; maybe Dean has been starving too, maybe he felt weak from the hunger while he was away, and now Castiel is here, pressed close and breathing hard against him, and Dean is going to devour him. He combs a hand into the hair at the base of Castiel's neck and clutches there, holding him in place, applying counterforce so he can kiss him harder, so his tongue can go deeper, so he can split the skin. With lips, and tongue, and teeth he devours, and it's good, it's so good, it's hard, and hot, and rough; it's exactly what Castiel wanted, but it's not enough, God, he can't get enough, it's been too long. So he wraps one leg around Dean's waist, and presses in, presses harder. "Dean," he moans, hands in Dean's hair, and Dean lifts him again, taking all of Castiel's weight so that he can wrap his other leg around Dean's waist and hold on. He grinds down once, and Dean groans, fingernails biting into Castiel's lower back and scratching. "Dean." Black wings manifest, then, flickering at first and then blooming like a flower in time-lapse. "Beautiful," Cas breathes, awed, stroking in to them; they are soft like feathers but they spark in to him like they are made of lightning. Powerful, they flex, and stroke once, and then the Kansas City Public Library is left behind in a breeze of hot air.

Castiel's breath is forced from his lungs as Dean slams him into the stone wall of their bedroom; he is crushed between the hard wall behind him, bruising his shoulder blades, and the hot skin in front of him, burning his brain away. "Dean," he exhales, "Dean," and when Dean looks into his eyes, they are nearly black with lust. With a growl, Dean tears his gaze away to fasten his teeth to the soft skin under Castiel's jaw, and bite. "Mine."Castiel bares his neck, grasps at the back of Dean's head, pressing him in to the bite. He wants Dean to bite harder, he wants his mark to lastforever. "More, Dean, harder."

Lips still on the skin, Dean pleads with him, soft, "Do you have any idea what you do to me?" Sucking the bite, brutal now, making sure it will bruise.

Cas can hardly breathe, suffocating on Dean's heat. "I want to," he gasps. "Tell me."

Dean growls again, turns, and throws Cas on their bed; it is 10 feet across the room and Dean tosses him like a quarter. His wings stroke once, then, propelling him across the room and on top of Cas in one movement. Eyes locked on Cas', he straightens to the full height he can achieve while on his knees and flexes his wings to their full span, showing him ownership, desire. "Beautiful," Cas breathes, and Dean swells as the black lightning begins to flicker again, his eyes flashing green-black-green.

"If Crowley thought about touching you, I would kill him. I would kill him for looking at you. I would kill him for saying your name. I would kill him for thinking it." Castiel whines as Dean leans and bites again, breaking the skin on his collarbone and starting a second, flowering bruise. "All of you, everything, has to be mine. Only mine."

"Am yours," Castiel bleats. Dean's mouth is wet on Castiel's chest as he glides down, tracing light fingers over Castiel's heart and kissing there, finding its beat and setting the pressure of his mouth to it until Castiel can feel his heartbeat throbbing in his whole skin. Until it feels like his heart is beating into Dean's mouth, and being carried away, until he is drained and lightheaded, floating over his bloodless body.  

"Mine forever. Forever," Dean whispers, a secret, into his heart.

"Forever," Castiel murmurs, but it's only because his mind is floating away that he agrees so docilely; if he were still cognizant he would be able to explain that forever isn't long enough, not for this. He would tell Dean that he knows what forever means; that every angel does, they are born and live and die in fire at the end of the universe all in a moment, in every moment, and they see and feel all things, all of time, simultaneously. He would tell Dean that when he was an angel, he was forever, and all of life and all of time expanded and contracted in front of him in endless oscillation, and that he knows, he knows, forever is not enough. Forever will be over in an instant, if Dean keeps pressing his mouth to Castiel's heart, and then Castiel will weep for an epoch twice as long. But his  _ mens _ is too distant to explain this, too distant by far, so he just agrees again, "Forever."

"I'd burn it all down, for you, I swear it, anything you wanted. Anything," Dean breathes, spilling all his secrets into Castiel's heart now, hands eliciting a shiver from Castiel as they ghost over his ribs, settling on his hips, holding them down. He is going to bite Castiel again, he mouths along the hem of his jeans until he finds the jut of Castiel's hip, and Castiel braces himself, in his mind and against the pressure of Dean's hands, but his back still arches off the bed and a whimper still keens from his lips when he feels Dean's teeth sink in against the bone.

"Dean, Dean," Castiel gasps. "Don't want 'anything'. Only want you." He has seen a million Heavens, a million million, he knows the things that men covet. They covet gold and jewels, because they have never seen Dean's eyes, flashing with lust. They covet worship, because they do not know what it is to worship Dean, on their knees. They covet power, because they do not know how it feels to give over their power and be torn apart, piece by piece, screaming Dean's name. Castiel knows, and covets nothing. Now he writhes under Dean, Fallen in every way imaginable. "Just you, Dean. Just this."

"My angel, my angel," Dean praises, voice rough and trembling, mouth not leaving Castiel's hips, lips soft there, mouthing at the bite.

"'M no angel," Castiel replies, as he often does. He Fell and he would do it again and he does not regret it and he never has and he never will.

"I missed you. Shouldn't have left you. Not for so long. Let me show you. I want to show you. Wanna make you feel it, feel everything, let me, please."

"Yes, Dean. Anything. Everything. For you."

*****

\---Past---

Dean has gone rabid, taken over by the Mark. He has been on a rampage, killing and dismembering all the Stynes, shooting Cyrus Styne in the head, a child who may have been innocent, and Castiel has arrived too late to stop him. When Castiel does arrive, Cyrus is dead on the floor. They fight, Dean and Castiel. What little stolen grace Castiel has left is not a match for the Mark, he is not strong enough to prevent Dean from leaving and continuing on his path of destruction by force. Beaten badly, bruised, he tries another way.

"Maybe you could fight the Mark for years. Maybe centuries, like Cain did. But you cannot fight it forever. And when you finally turn, and you will turn... Sam, and everyone you know, everyone you love... they could be long dead. Everyone except me. I’m the one who will have to watch you murder the world."

The bloodlust in Dean's eyes dims, just marginally. "Everyone, I..." He looks down, at the angel blade in his hand, grip tightening and loosening, convulsively, he looks at the Mark, angry red and pulsing, he can hear it whispering, Kill him, do it. Kill him. Kill him. He fights against it, it is so hard to fight now, but he does, to return his eyes to Castiel's. "Everyone I... love? Everyone except... you?"

Castiel's eyes soften now, too, and without releasing Dean from their gaze he nods his head, one deliberate motion down. He whispers, the fight gone out of him completely, "Everyone who loves you." He stares at Dean, like he has done so many times before, blue eyes heavy, but what was unspoken then is spoken now for the first time between them.

Dean drops the angel blade. Staring at Castiel, like he does not believe it (he does not believe it), he takes Castiel's beaten face, gently, in his hands, and draws him in, slowly, for a kiss. He pauses at the last moment, giving Castiel a chance, the last chance, to stop what is about to happen. To save himself. Castiel doesn't pull away, doesn't lean closer, but whispers, into the slim crack of space that is still between them, "I love you, Dean." And still, Dean does not close the distance. "I'm not afraid." That is what he was waiting for, he realizes. That is what he needs. This, what is about to happen, it is dangerous, it is powerful, it could hurt, it probably will. It is something to be afraid of. Castiel knows, and he is not afraid. He is so brave, his angel. Brave and beautiful, powerful and strong and loyal and true. The Mark quiets. He presses his lips to Castiel's. It is hard, but it is slow. Wet, and deep, tongues slick and warm they kiss, standing, just standing, Dean's hands on Castiel's face, Castiel's hands uncertain, hanging at his sides as the world spins chaotic around them, Mark's carnage still bleeding into the wooden floor of the bunker, to stain. 

Dean pulls back when his heart hurts too much to continue. "You don't have to watch me," he says, his forehead pressed to Castiel's, forming his words from Castiel's breath. "It doesn't have to be like that. Come with me, Cas. Don't stand against me. Come with me. We can be together. We have this chance. Come with me." Possessing the Mark, he is beyond death, beyond fear, but his vision is red, he is angry, murderous, all the time. Now though, with Castiel still tingling on his lips, still warm and solid against his body, he feels a cloud of softness pressing back against the burning pulse of the Mark. "Need you, Cas. It will take me without you. It will take me and there will be nothing left. Come with me." His voice breaks. "Please." With this power, and this softness, there is nothing he couldn't do. If only Castiel would come with him.  

"Dean. I-". Castiel gathers himself. In the moment before he responds, Dean's heart lurches, like he is at the top of a roller coaster that is just beginning to fall. If Cas says no, if Cas says no, he is afraid, he is falling, he steps back, looks away from Cas, at the ground, if Cas says no, he won't be able to look in his eyes. They will be so sad, he is sure. If Cas says no, if Cas says no, he will leave. Leave the bunker, leave Kansas, leave Earth; he will scream and kill until he can't feel the loss, feel anything, any more. The Mark will take him. He will let it. He will welcome it. If Cas says no. And if Cas says yes.... The roller coaster hits bottom and accelerates into the air, upward, exploding. If, If. He can't. He can't.  

He is jerked back to reality when Castiel takes his hand, gently. "Dean." Dean keeps looking at the floor, lower lip trembling. "Dean." Castiel takes Dean's face in his other hand, and raises it, careful, inexorable. Dean breathes deeply and faces Castiel's eyes, so afraid (What if he says no). They are wet, but they are not closed off. They are not sad. "I love you, Dean. I'll always come when you call. You know that. Or you should." Dean's mouth hangs open, not believing. So Castiel repeats, slowly, determined, holding Dean's gaze with hard eyes. "I will stay with you and protect you and keep you Dean, wherever you go. Now. Always." He is steel, he is so certain. How can he be so certain, how has he always been so certain, of Dean? Dean is a man, only a man, he is a murderer and he is covered in blood and he has brought the world to the brink as many times as he has saved it, but Castiel is so sure. Has always been so sure.

"If you come with me, Heaven, Hell, and Earth will all hunt you."

"I don't care."

"When they come for you... the Mark... I will do anything to keep you with me Cas, keep you safe. Anything. Do you understand?"

"I understand."

"You won't get your grace back. You'll lose your wings."

"I don't care." Stony. "My grace only ever made me a tool." Bitter, regretful. "I'll be better off without it."   Dean nods into his eyes, understanding. He knows what Heaven has asked of Castiel, and what Heaven has done to him to ensure his obedience.

"Ok, then. Ok." Dean steps forward, wraps arms around Castiel and then black wings. They are going to Hell, God help them, but they are going together. 

*****

\---Present---

_ "Yes, Dean. Anything. Everything. For you." _

Dean kisses Castiel, everywhere, sweat and saliva slicking his skin and making him gleam in the torchlight of their room. He kisses him until he shakes, until he is senseless. Castiel is so beautiful like this: his head is turned to the side on his pillow, eyes squeezed shut like he is just trying to hang on, skin pale but blushing, mouth red and swollen and open to deep, panting breaths, hair damp and sticking up, sticking to his forehead, to his neck, florid bruises blooming in a trail from his neck to his hips. Dean wants to take him and own him, consume him in every way possible. What would Castiel not allow him? Nothing. Heaven help them, nothing, at all. He peels Castiel's jeans away and continues to mark him. "Mine," he growls with each new press of lips and teeth to skin. "Mine, mine, my angel, mine," the last mark placed on the top of Castiel's twitching foot, as Castiel's hips fuck helplessly into the air, his cock red and swollen and leaking. Dean crawls back up, laving his tongue wetly over every mark as he climbs, returning to the first one, on Castiel's neck. "I should ink it here, my name, permanent, where everyone can see it, always. So they know you belong to me." Castiel whines. "Would you like that, angel?" He whispers, hungry. "To wear me on your throat?"

"Yes, Dean, yes."

"So good, you're so good for me, my beautiful, my angel."

"'M no angel."

"You're my angel. Always will be, no matter how far you Fall," and he takes Castiel's hips in his hands, gripping him, rolling him over onto his stomach. "Gonna show you." He covers Castiel's back in kisses now, tongue wet, lips tugging, teeth grazing on shoulders and spine, fingers light as feathers on the upstroke, scratching and pulling gently with nails on the down stroke, Castiel breaking out into gooseflesh and shivering beneath him. "Tell me what you want."

"You Dean. Just you."

"You have me. Tell me what you want."

"You inside of me. Tear me apart. Put me back together again."

"Ok. Ok, Cas." Hands under Castiel's hips, Dean lifts; compliant, eager, Cas rises until he is supporting himself on knees and elbows. Dean works at him slowly, expertly, with fingers, and tongue, and mouth, until he is trembling open, wet and gaping. He keeps fingering and laving, pressing and sucking long past the point at which he knows Castiel could take him. Toying with him, dragging it out, making it last, making it good. Until Castiel writhes, and whines, and begs him, "Dean, Please. Dean."

"You ready for me, angel?" He mouths at the curve of Castiel's ass, drags a finger around him, teasing, inside. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, Dean. Yes. Need you. Now." Panting.

"Tell me. Tell me what you want."

"Fuck me. Christ Jesus and the Heavenly Host. Fuck me, or kill me."

"Castiel," Dean hisses, and enters him, moving slowly, so slowly, so gently. He could fill Castiel in one, hard, thrust and Castiel would take it, he would inhale sharply and take it, take the burn and the sudden, intrusive fullness and he would squeeze and press and twist and love it, love it and pant for it and beg Dean to fuck him harder. But Dean doesn't do that, that's not what he wants, he wants it to be slow, he wants it to last as long as it can, to last forever. He wants Castiel to be breathless and broken on the rising sensation and have eternity to feel it and suffer in its perfection. He slides forward, inward, almost imperceptibly. A storm cloud begins to form around him, again, the air coalescing with his desire, and power.  

"More, Dean, I need you. Need to feel you. All of you." Castiel tries to press backwards, onto Dean; Dean doesn't let him, holds his hips fast in a razor grip. The air shakes, distant thunder.

"You will, angel, I promise." Sliding forward until he bottoms out, exhaling and holding perfectly, perfectly still, just feeling it, Castiel hot and tight and pulsing around him, the storm cloud building and roiling out, black lightning flickering, again, tiny, sharp strikes, as he waits, just waits. Waits for it to be impossible to hold still any longer. Waits for it to be right. In the heat, and thunder, Castiel lowers his head and bites his lip on a long moan. Dean backs out, and in again. And again. And again. Harder, faster, each time. Thrusting his hips forward now, and pulling Castiel onto him, taking him deeper, and deeper. Building a rhythm, fucking Castiel long and hard as he trembles against him. Lightning flashes around them, striking more frequently now, striking harder. The thunder rumbles nearer.  

"Dean. Dean. Deandeandean," Droplets of sweat bead and fall from Castiel's forehead; he shakes so hard his elbows give out beneath him. He turns the side of his face into his pillow and Dean fucks him harder.

"You feel me now?"

"Yes, Ah, Dean." Eyes clenched shut.

"I missed you. I wanted you. I touched myself, and I thought of you, and I called your name, when I was alone, and the only way I could bear it was that I promised that when I came back I would give you anything. Everything. Tell me what you want. Tell me what you need."

"I want... Dean, I need... I need... Ah, ah..." Castiel is losing the thread, he can't talk, he can't breathe, he can't see, he can't keep to the rhythm Dean is setting. Sparks are are flying in the center of his vision; it's going black around the edges, where the building cloud threatens to take him. And Dean keeps holding on to him, tightening his grip, taking Castiel over, pulling him in to deepen his thrusts, pushing him forward when he pulls back to give himself more room for momentum, moving him in rhythm to keep it perfect and hard and long even now that Castiel can't control himself. It's too much to bear, it would be too much for anyone to bear, Castiel thinks, he might die, die from this, and he doesn't care if his heart stops or his brain ruptures, doesn't care at all, about himself, about Heaven or the angels or anything, and he screams, he screams, he screams Dean's name, shameless, broken, when he comes, and comes, and comes, until he is empty, body slack, damp with sweat and come and trembling under Dean. He collapses, tears leaking out of crystal blue eyes, gasping.

"Beautiful," Dean whispers, as Castiel comes apart in his hands. "So Beautiful."   This angel underneath him, celestial and eternal and perfect, strong like diamond and just as bright, breaking on the feel of Dean, screaming his name, wild haired, drenched in come, skin marked and red and bruised in a dozen places by Dean's teeth, unashamed, giving up everything, giving over all of himself and holding nothing back. He clenches around Dean's cock, muscles spasming in the aftershocks, and Dean can't hold on any more, senseless from the sight of it, the feel. "My angel. Castiel," he breathes, and comes inside him, thunder rolling and breaking through the Pit, the storm passing through him and splitting reality, for an unending moment, in a depthless, black, tear.

It takes forever for him to stitch reality back together. Forever floating, mind empty, eyes unseeing, body blank and loose. When he comes back to himself, he is on his side, Castiel pressed against him, eyes closed, arms wrapped around his waist, still breathing heavily. "Castiel," was the last word he spoke before the universe ended and "Castiel," is the first word he speaks when he can speak again, in this new universe, the one he put back together out of the black. He wraps Castiel in strong arms and black wings, and draws him even closer, warm and naked. "Never gonna let you go. I promise."

He sleeps. He doesn't dream, but he knows that he is safe. He never knew that, before he had Castiel.   

Castiel saved him.  He knows this.  Saved him from the Mark.  There was one way to quiet the Mark, this he knew from Cain, had known since he took it on.  Murder.  That was the way.  To turn the Mark’s endless, dull, crushing throb into a sweet song of power that thrilled within him.  He had to kill.  But Castiel showed him that there was a second way.  Love.  When he kissed Castiel, when he cared for him after his Fall.  When he pressed chips of ice to his burning lips and wrapped him in soft blankets.  When he fed him and smoothed back his wild hair and bathed him with warm, scented oils.  When he watched him sleep, and smoothed a hand against him in comfort, until he calmed, if nightmares troubled him.  When he held him close and counted his breaths.  Especially, when Castiel said, or whispered, or moaned “I love you,” even if Dean did not, could not, say it back, but felt the answering warmth in his heart just the same.  Then, there was a kind of softness.  A cloud of softness, of evenness, of light, that pressed back against the throbbing of the Mark.  That made it fade away into the background, a shadow only and a dim one in the light gleaming around Castiel, around Dean’s feelings for him.  Castiel saved him.  Not for the first time.  From himself.  From eternity.  From the Mark.

Even asleep, he pulls Castiel closer.      

*****

When Dean wakes again, out of the black, Castiel is wrapped around him, legs and arms, chest to chest, warm and clinging softly, breath light and easy. He smoothes back Castiel's wild hair, brushes his thumb gently over split lips and purple bruises, and kisses him on the corner of his mouth. Without opening his eyes, Cas smiles. A radiant, soft smile. Angel.

"I want you again," Dean tells him, voice low, sleep rough. His cock feels full and heavy against his leg, pressed to Castiel's naked thigh. He always wants Castiel.

"Mmmm," Castiel's eyes stay closed, but his smile widens.

"I want to take you the way I want you," a hot whisper, mouth close against Castiel's ear.

"Mmm. Yes," Castiel rasps, shivering. Knowing what that means.

Dean turns him onto his back, gently, and straddles him. Leans down and kisses him slow on the mouth for a long, long time, Cas sleepy, warm, pliant under him. Dean knows that Cas likes to be ridden hard and put away wet, be torn apart from the inside out and come like a gunshot, and it's good, so good, to have him that way. But when it's up to Dean, he wants him a different way. He wants to love Castiel with his body and take care of him, make him feel warm and safe and worshipped and adored and good, so, so good, and come like he's drowning in liquid gold, everything bright and warm and shining. He wants Castiel to know, to feel all the things that Dean doesn't know how to say to him with words. His angel, his sweet angel, who cries so sweetly when he comes, who loves him, loves him without holding back, even though he is conqueror and vanquisher, black eyed and black hearted, damned and ruling over the damned in Hell forever. Who gives over all of himself, everything, to Dean. Always, Only, to Dean.

Dean fills his kisses with the sweetness he feels for Castiel, the sweetness that keeps the Mark at bay, that allows him to rule but remain himself, remain Dean. The only sweetness he has left, maybe the only sweetness he has ever had. It's important to him to remember that sweetness now, to express it, so that he doesn't become the demon entire.

When Castiel wakes up enough to start stroking Dean's back with his hands, Dean takes them in his own and raises them up over Castiel's head. Pins them together there. "Ok?" He asks.

"Mmm. Yes." Castiel says. Dean binds them together with a thought, with a twist of his power, black and crackling, and fastens them tight to the frame of the bed. Castiel strives against the magic, muscles cording, hands not moving at all.

"How will I know if you want me to stop?"

"I won't."

"How will I know?"

"I'll cry out for Beezlebub," Castiel says, smiling.

"Beezlebub," Dean smiles back, and kisses Castiel again, slow and thick and sweet, like honey. He lives on the taste of Castiel on his tongue: copper from his split lip, salt and sweat and mountain air. He kisses down Castiel's body, finding the contours of every smooth muscle with his tongue, mouth open wide and warm, everywhere, missing nothing, hurrying nothing, until he reaches Castiel's feet. There, he spreads Castiel's legs wide, and these too he binds to the bed. When Castiel strives now, he doesn't move at all, but he does whisper, "Dean," under a heavy breath that turns into a long groan.

Dean smiles on Castiel's skin and rises again, and now he uses his hands, palms smoothing over Castiel's lean legs, nails light on ribs, holding Castiel's face while he kisses him again, and again, open mouthed and deep. Drugged on Dean, on his mouth, on his touch, Castiel's moans become constant, with no pauses between them. They fill Dean's mouth, breath after breath, and Dean kisses Castiel deeper, harder, chasing that sweet moan with lips and tongue, drawing it forth, louder, rougher. Dean starts to glow, actually glow, golden, power manifesting very differently now from the summer storm that shook them before.

"So beautiful," Castiel breathes, eyes slitted.

"How do you feel?" Dean asks, mouth on Castiel's jaw, feeling the stubble there, rough against his lips.

"So good. Warm. Light. Like a....bubble. I'm... floating."

Dean smiles, and glows a little brighter. "Floating is good, Cas. Keep doing that."

"Mmmmm, OK," he replies, and closes his eyes. Dean's hands and mouth keep moving, warm and gentle over Cas, but now he adds his wings. Covering Castiel, stroking him everywhere all at once. Strokes that are soft, and long, so long that they feel like they will never end, like a wave that builds and builds and never crests; single long strokes that find the spaces between Castiel's toes, the bend behind his knee, the insides of his thighs, the rise of his nipples, the swell of his lips, the shadow behind his ear. Stroking long, building, forever, and just when it seems like they can't stroke any longer, returning and stroking again. Feathers soft as silk, but humming with power; where they touch (everywhere, they touch everywhere) they charge Castiel's skin and it thrums with same the golden light that is building in Dean, warming him and throbbing, pulsing in every cell, on the surface and deep within. And through this, through it all, the rise and the glow and the gentle, sweet, throbbing, Dean's mouth, a single point of focus, pressure on Castiel's lips, kissing Castiel and stealing his breath away.

Dean enshrouds them in a black cocoon of feathers. Inside, they are lit by the golden light of their bodies. Inside, it is only them, Dean and Castiel, floating, higher and higher on the tide of gold.     

"How do you feel?"

"Dean, I feel... Bright. Shiny. Like I'm sparking," he shivers, "everywhere. Am I?"

"Open your eyes and see."

Castiel slits his eyes, and gasps. Above him, green eyes adore him from a golden face, framed by gleaming black wings. "Holy Father, Dean. You're so beautiful. I can't," He slams his eyes closed and squeezes them tight.

Dean takes his face in gentle hands. "You can. Open your eyes, for me, angel. I want to see you. I want you right here with me."

Castiel clenches his eyes tighter and shakes his head, biting his lip.

"Please," Dean ghosts a kiss over Castiel's lips. "Need you, Cas. Need you to be with me." His voice is so soft. Where is the lord of the Pit, master of the rack and a million souls? Where is the great demon, horned and vicious? He is not here. Castiel's sweetness has dissolved him and left behind only golden light.

Castiel shudders, and opens his eyes. They are lined with tears. "I'm here with you Dean. Always. Always."

Face to face, eyes open, Dean starts to move over Castiel, then, one hand holding his jaw, so he can't look away, the other lowered between them to grip their slick cocks together. In his eyes, he is bare. He shows Castiel everything there: sweetness, tenderness, longing, love.    

Castiel's hips rock up into Dean and the light pulses with their rhythm, building, building, with the sweet ache building in their hearts, with the gleaming warmth building everywhere they touch. Silent tears are falling freely from Castiel's eyes now. "Dean. I love you. I love you. I love you," over and over, like if he says it enough times Dean will finally hear it. "I love you so much. Forever. Always. With everything I have, everything I am, I love you. You are so, so, beautiful." Wetness breaks around Dean's eyes, too, as with arms, and wings, and body, he pulls Castiel closer, closer, rolling in to him.

"Cas," Dean breathes. "Need you." It is the best he can do. "Need you so much. My beautiful. My angel. My Castiel." The entire universe is the cocoon around them, deep black, green eyes, blue eyes, warm bodies rocking together, heavy breaths the only sound, golden light building, and building. Dean is so hard, and wet, and slick, and Castiel is right there, right there with him, so, so good, bound and groaning and rising to meet him on every thrust, and he doesn't think he can last much longer but he doesn't want it to end, he wants this feeling, this moment, to last forever. "Want you forever, Cas. Again and again. Forever."

"Yes, Dean, Yes. Always. Yours. Forever."

And as forever spins out in front of him, forever with Castiel, forever undying, unburnt, unconquered, forever like this, just like this, just darkness and light and Castiel, power and love and lust and blue eyes, Dean comes, spilling and spilling onto Castiel's stomach, clutching at him, and Castiel is right there with him, coming, clutching back and crying out for him so sweetly. Reality tears again, and this time, it is with a blinding, endless nova of perfect light.

*****

Dean releases Castiel from his bonds, and rubs gently at his wrists where the pressure has turned them red. "I'll heal them," he says quietly, a little ashamed, smoothing fingers over the ugly marks.

"No." Castiel is absolute. "I like to look at them, and remember. I like everyone to see, and imagine me with you."

Dean feels heat rising to flush his face. He traces the now-scabbed mark of his teeth on Castiel's neck with a finger. "Did you mean it when you said you wanted to wear me here? My name on your throat?" His voice is low, and trembling.

Cas shivers. "Yes."

Decisive, Dean sits up on the bed. "Show me my name. My true name." Castiel gestures, and Dean's true name hovers in the air between them, limned in the gold that Dean shared with him. It is not really 'Dean'; the Enochian translates roughly to something like "Who the darkness fears." This hasn't changed, even since he took the Pit... The darkness does still fear him, maybe more now than ever before, now that he can do anything, see anything, be anywhere, can't be killed. Castiel gestures again and the symbols shrink and shift onto the unmarked side of his neck.

"Here. Like this." He bares his neck to Dean.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"This will bind you to me. You'll belong to me. Forever."

"I know. I want it, Dean. I want to be yours."

"Ok." Dean shivers, and gathers himself. He focuses on the shining glyph on Castiel's neck, face intent. Then, he calls the First Blade. He makes a long, shallow cut in the palm of his left hand, and the same cut on Castiel. He co-mingles their blood on the tip of the Blade, and this is the ink and the tool he uses to cut and bleed and bind his true name to Castiel's neck. It takes a long time, to make sure the details are perfect, to make sure that the mark goes deep enough that it will be permanent. Castiel closes his eyes and pants softly, getting high on the precise, sharp, pain.  

The moment Dean finishes, the blood swirls and recedes, and the mark glows silver instead of crimson, shimmering out of synch with the flickering of lights in the room, gleaming of its own accord, of the power that is bound within it. Castiel is breathing heavily, and his pupils are dilated when he opens his eyes and looks at Dean. "Yours," he growls, wetly, touching the mark, stroking it lovingly. "I can feel it." He stretches out his neck, rolling his head and shoulders, catlike, long. "Your ownership. It feels like... your scent is over me everywhere. It's like a drug. It's all I can breathe." And he breathes in deep, eyes lolling closed. "It's so heavy, it's like a touch. Your touch. All over my skin." He strikes out with the hand that is not still caressing the mark, clutches Dean's neck. "Take me again. Now. Own me. Fuck me. Fuck what's yours."

"Cas," Dean groans, and answers this demand with a desperate, bruising kiss, hands tight around the back of Castiel's neck, holding Castiel's face to his own so he can enter him with his tongue, taste and suck and eat him deep. Not letting go, not breaking the kiss, Dean positions himself with his back to the headboard, legs out in front of him, and drags Castiel into his lap. He forces Castiel to his knees, back to Dean's chest, straddling Dean's legs, ass spread open, Dean's already hard cock rubbing up against the cleft there. One hand inside Castiel, working him open, he presses his mouth to the mark on Castiel's throat. With every heavy suck, it sears bright and sharp into Castiel, making him whimper. "You like it, don't you," Dean whispers hot against his neck, as he twists and rubs his fingers inside of him. "Knowing that you are mine. Knowing that I own you. Own your body. That I can make you my slave. That I can do anything to you. That I want to."

"Yes, Dean. Yes. Don't stop."

Castiel tries to lower himself down onto Dean's cock, striving for it, but Dean holds him up with the grip of two hands on Castiel's hips, so he can whisper, menacing and low into Castiel's ear: "I'm going to have you every way. All ways. I'm going to be rough with you. Then so gentle it makes you lose your mind before you scream. Then take you violent, bound, fuck you raw. Because I want to. Because I can. Because you are mine."

"Yesssss Deannnnn, Yes, anything you want. Yes." Castiel is whining now. His eyes are rolled back in his head, and he is squirming in Dean's grip, eager for Dean's cock. Dean bites his lips and lowers Castiel, rolling his hips up and in at the same time; he exhales with a hiss when Castile surrounds him and starts to rock. Castiel reaches back with both hands and drags Dean's head down by the back of the neck, to hold Dean's mouth to the mark with a fierce grip. Mouth trapped, and hungry, Dean sucks and presses at the mark, scraping it with teeth, laving it with tongue, tasting the strange metallic coolness that interleaves with the heat and salt of Castiel's skin. Shafts of silver light, the same color as that sparkling on the mark, start to slice through the air like knives. With every press and drag of Dean's lips on the mark, another light shoots through the room, until soon it seems as though the air is made of falling stars.

Dean said that he was going to take Castiel rough, and he does. His hands rise to Castiel's chest, to finger and palm his nipples, hot and dry. His hips roll and thrust into Castiel, wild, careless, setting a brutal rhythm. Castiel keens, and moans, twists and rocks, answers the force of Dean's hips with force of his own, and throughout it all holds Dean's mouth to the mark on his bared neck with a relentless two-handed grip. "Yours, Dean.  Yours forever," he confesses, into the starlight.

"Forever," Dean agrees, and presses his teeth in to the mark, bearing down, making Castiel scream. The falling stars shimmer and spiral in their descent; they are falling so thick now it is hard to see through them. For Dean, the sound of Castiel's scream; for Castiel, the feel of Dean's bite on the mark; it is too much, too much, too much to endure at this pace, in this light. They come together, bright and hot, panting in the heat.  This time, when reality breaks, it is sliced in two by a blade of gleaming silver light. 

*****

They do send Baal to watch for Sam, and he is stupid, so Sam does see him when he leaves the bunker on his way to Nebraska, and Sam does kill him, but it's worth it because when Baal calls out to Dean, for help, that's when they know that Sam is outside of the bunker's wards and Dean is able to summon him to the place that Castiel has prepared for him in the Pit. Castiel meets him there.

"Cas! Where am I! What's going on?"

"Sam. You're in the Pit. You're safe. Dean brought you here."

"Dean...the Pit.." Realization dawns on his face. "The werewolf. You sent it. To bait me. And Baal. To tell you when the bait was set. You lured me here. You tricked me. You sent it to kill all those people... Why?"  

"To keep you safe, Sam. To keep you safe from harm and to keep us safe from you."

"Safe... From me? Cas, I'm trying to help you. I just want to help. I can help you. I've been reading a lot about Fallen angels, and I think I can..."

"No, Sam. No. I don't need help. I don't want help."

"But, this... Cas... You're an angel. An angel of the Lord. You can't tell me that this is what you want, after Heaven--"

"You know what Heaven did to me."

"Yeah, but--"

"They tortured me, Sam. They tortured me and brainwashed me and they used me like a tool. Now no one hurts me. Now, I am free."

"No one hurts you but Dean," Sam says, looking significantly at the bright bruises on Castiel's neck, the red marks around his wrists.

"Dean doesn't hurt me," Castiel replies, looking Sam straight in the eyes. "Dean gives me what I want."

"I know you think that, Cas, but it's not real. This isn't real, it isn't really Dean, it's not really him, and whatever's wearing his body has done something to you, I don't know what, but I can help you. I can help him. I can bring you both back."

Castiel shakes his head. "Even if it isn't real, I don't care. In a million years, in Heaven, I was never this happy, never once."

"You were an angel of the Lord for a million years, and now you skulk around in Hell, planning schemes to entrap your friends that are baited with violent murder. How can you be happy? How can that be your choice?"

"I was an angel of the Lord, and with those million years of wisdom, I chose Dean's rule over my Father's. You've met Chuck, you know who is the better man."

"That thing isn't Dean. That thing isn't my brother." Sam is stone-faced, his voice hard, when he says this, his jaw set.

"I know you think that, Sam," Cas says, invoking the same words that Sam used on him a moment ago. Sam shakes his head. "But he cares about you. That's why he brought you here, instead of killing you. That's why he wants you to be safe." His voice grows softer, as he adds. "Dean is happy now, too. Happier than I have ever seen him. Less racked by guilt, and duty. More... alive." Sam opens his mouth to reply, but Castiel raises a hand to forestall him. "Is there anything you want, or need, to be comfortable?" The room is just as Castiel had described it to Dean, soft cornered, black stone, no entrance or exit, its only feature a stone shelf with a blanket and a wall for privacy around an area with running water to drink, and clean.

"I want you to let me go."

"If I let you go, will you stop trying to 'save' us?"

"I will never stop trying to save Dean."

"Then I can't let you go. I'll come visit you again, soon."

"Cas, wait--" Sam starts, but Castiel is already gone.  Sam is left alone, to think about what he will do when someone returns to see him again, if someone does.  Left alone, to seethe against his brother, and what he has done to Castiel, and to plan.

*****

Castiel is not satisfied with the way his first encounter with Sam went, and decides to take Sam breakfast the next morning. He prepares a tray with fresh melon, oatmeal with bananas and maple syrup, and a plain yogurt covered with blueberries and raspberries. He knows that Sam prefers more healthful options than the garbage that Dean eats, especially now that he is immortal.

He appears in Sam's room with the tray. Before he can say "Good morning, Sam," Sam is on him, forearm against his throat, pressing him up against the wall, knocking the tray out of his arms onto the floor, beginning an exorcism.  " _ Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica..." _ he intones, righteous.  Castiel could easily flick him back, but he decides that perhaps it is for the best for Sam to see that he is not possessed, and does not want to fight him, so he waits patiently for the exorcism to be over. When nothing happens, Sam looks a little confused, a little disappointed, and loosens his grip, just a fraction. Castiel steps out of it, effortlessly. He banishes the now ruined tray of breakfast, and summons a new one, identical to the first.

"Good morning, Sam. I brought you breakfast. Many fresh fruits.  This is extremely healthful for you."

"What... Cas... How...?" Sam splutters, ineffectually.

"I'm not possessed. Dean is not possessed. He's told you this. An exorcism won't do anything to me because there is nothing controlling me. I'm here by my free choice, Sam."

"No, Cas, you're not. You might not be possessed, but that mark on your neck... That's Dean's Name. He--or whatever's wearing his body-- has bound you to him. You can't disobey him. He's controlling you. Don't you realize that?"

Castiel strokes the mark on his neck, fondly. "You recognize Dean's true name?"

"Of course I do."

"His name wouldn't bind me to anyone but him, Sam. If you believe that I'm bound, you have to believe that it's really to Dean. That he's really him.  No one else could bind me with this. For anyone else, this is just a shiny tattoo."

"I don't believe that, Cas. Somehow, something, it's... It's got him, and it's controlling you..."

Cas sighs. "What would it take, to make you believe? You exorcised me and nothing happened. You recognize Dean's true name so when you've had enough time to think about it, you'll realize that Dean is really Dean. What more is it going to take? Tell me, and I'll make it happen."

Sam looks at him shrewdly. "You'd do that. You'd help me, to figure out what's going on with Dean."

Cas looks disappointed, like Sam is a student that he had high hopes for but who is asking insufferably stupid questions. He answers quietly. "I know what's 'going on' with Dean, Sam. The Mark has taken him. He's immortal now, powerful, he's the Father of Murder and the Lord and Master of the Pit. But he is still Dean. There's nothing more to figure out."

"And you're just OK with that? He's just OK with that? Being the Father of fucking Murder?"

"Being the Father of Murder doesn't mean he has to murder anyone. You remember what Cain was like. He lived apart, and kept the bees. He had a beard. Dean keeps order in the Pit, he watches the bonds on Lucifer's Cage, he makes sure Crowley doesn't do anything too evil, and he worries about you. It's a lot like what he did when he was human, except that now he has a nicer place to live, nothing can hurt him, and he has me with him. The last time he used the First Blade was to give me this mark." He gestures at his neck. "He's better off, Sam. I'm better off."

"I don't believe that Cas. Look at you. You're practically twirling your moustache. The demons that I've talked to...they're afraid of you. They say you torture souls."

"Evil souls, Sam. What do you think I was doing when I burned the eyes out of demons as an angel? How do you think that felt for them, do you think it felt like a nice warm breeze? What do you think that the fury of the Lord looks like? What I do now is no different. But now I have a choice. Now, nobody hurts me. And now I have Dean. We're better off."  

"I'm sorry Cas. I'm sorry that you think that. I'm going to help you, and there's going to come a time when you look back on this with regret, and I'm sorry for that too."

Cas shakes his head, sadly. "Eat your breakfast, Sam. Think about what it would take to make you believe. I'll come visit you again soon."


	2. Dean Falls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A ring of hushed silence surrounds Dean, the screams of the Pit quieted on all the racks close enough to have seen him become the whirlwind. The Mark was quiet before, but now it is singing within him. Now he is powerful, invincible, vast and unstoppable, he is the wind that comes at the end of time and cleanses the Earth. He stands straight, and flexes his wings; they crackle with silver lightning, and the ring of awed silence around him grows. Anything, he can do anything, be anything, have anything. 
> 
> Castiel. That is what he wants. Now, always, only. Castiel. To be with him when he is filled with this power he can barely contain, to take him into its wake and have him, completely. Castiel. His angel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings in the end notes.

_If you love me, don't let go._ _Oh, if you love me, don't let go. Hold on to me, cuz I'm a little unsteady._

\--X Ambassadors, Unsteady

 

_\---Past---_

Cain had given in to the Mark, and tried to murder the world.  Dean didn't want that.  He wanted to fight.  At first, he tried to fight with booze and women and ugly, bloody demon kills.  That didn't work.  It just made him crave more:  more blood, more drugs, more joyless fucking, and hate himself if he got those things and feel strung out if he didn't.  His head pulsed with a metallic migraine, all the time, and it only let up, even a fraction, when he hunted.  It never let up completely.  He thought he knew why.  It never let up completely because he never killed a human, only monsters, and that's not what the Mark really wanted.  It wanted the kind of blood that Cain had spilled.

 He bore the pain for a while.  Self-deprivation wasn't new to him.  But it got so that he couldn't stand it.  It would buzz, and chew, and slice into his brain and he would drink until he blacked out, just to escape it.  And then the Mark would heal him, and all too fast he would be in agony again, lying on the floor of a shitty motel room, with tears rolling down his cheeks.  If he was lucky, when he woke up, he would be alone, just him alone covered in bile and still wearing his clothes from the night before.  That became a good morning, for him.  Because if he wasn't lucky, there would be a corpse.  Or corpses.  Burnt out shells of the possessed.  And he would be covered in blood, instead of only bile.     

He woke one morning lying in wet mud.  Cold mud.  Red mud.  Half dirt, half blood.  He could feel and smell it all around him.  He didn't want to know what he had done, how he had come to waken lying in cold, bloody, mud.  He groaned with the flare of the migraine, throbbing and knifing through his brain.  And he hurt.  Everywhere.  Every one of his bones felt like it was broken.  Every one of his joints felt like it was filled with jagged glass.  He opened his eyes, reluctantly, to meet the horror and find out what had happened.  He was lying on his back and all he could see was blue sky, and branches of tall trees.  No help there.  He tried to roll over, and couldn't.  Because it hurt too much, and because there was something holding him.  At his stomach, and his left leg, near the calf.  Very slowly, moving as little as possible, he used fingers that felt crushed and flayed to feel around his midsection.  In that way he learned that he was not bound.  He was impaled.  By... it felt like a sapling.  There was a fucking bloody sapling piercing his abdomen, piercing him all the way through and rooting him to the ground.  His vision swirled, and he felt dizzy, for a moment.  He dropped his aching fingers and closed his eyes.  That explained all the blood.  And that also explained why the Mark hadn't been able to heal whatever was wrong with him, because he had passed out fucking impaled.  And that meant that he was going to have to get un-impaled if he wanted to stop hurting, and figure out what was going on--which he wasn't actually looking forward to, on the basis of what he knew so far.  

He gritted his teeth.  This was going to fucking suck.  So much so, that, hurt, and miserable, and laying cold and bloody in the mud, and almost without even realizing he was doing it, he prayed for Castiel.

_Cas, Cas, where are you man?  I hurt.  I hurt so bad.  The Mark... Something's wrong.  I don't know what.  Help me.  Please._

 He waited.  Nothing happened.  Castiel didn't appear.  Of course not.  He hated himself for even hoping.  A tear leaked from the corner of his eye, and it wasn't entirely from the pain.  Ok.  No help coming.  He was going to have to man the fuck up and take care of this himself.  No big news there.  Wasn't the first time, wouldn't be the last.  He was going to have to get that tree out of his stomach, and it was going to hurt.  He decided on the rip the bandaid off approach, and before he gave himself too much time think about _how much_ it was going to hurt, he squeezed his eyes closed and his jaw tight, and counted down from three.  And then, in one violent, excruciating movement, he broke the tree off just where it exited his body, and sat bolt upright.

He screamed.  The pain crashed through him in red waves, choking him.  He gagged on acid bile and retched, and with the movement of his heaving the pain washed through him again.  He kept screaming, and hoped for unconsciousness that did not come.  The Mark wouldn't give it to him.  For ten minutes he sat there, in the mud, screaming until he was hoarse, retching until he was empty and aching, shivering from the pain, waiting for it to recede enough to allow him to think again.  Ten screaming minutes, until the Mark had healed him enough to rip a second sapling out of his calf, and actually see his surroundings through the fog of pain.

He was in a forest, on three sides he was surrounded by trees, some huge, some the size of the saplings that had impaled him.  On the fourth side, and about fifty feet from where he now sat in the mud, was the sheer rock face of a cliff.  His neck craned to find its top; it was several hundred feet above him.  An idea of what had happened to him started to form in his head, but he pushed it down, almost frantically, until he could be sure.  It wasn't a very pleasant idea, and he didn’t really want to be sure, so he sat and breathed through his pain with his eyes closed until his leg healed enough for him to stand up.

When he did stand, he noticed that his body had not been lying flush with the ground.  Instead, he had been lying in a crater.  A body-shaped crater.  A Dean's body-shaped crater.  He closed his eyes again.   _Fuck_ .  The evidence was stacking up.  Lying in a crater.  At the base of a cliff.  Impaled on two saplings.  Every bone in his body broken.  He thought... his idea about what had happened came rushing back up, and another dry heave of bile with it.  He thought that he might have _thrown himself off of the cliff._ And he didn't think... He would have known... No matter how drunk he was, he would have known that throwing himself off a cliff wouldn't kill him.  The Mark wouldn't let it.  He wouldn't have done it to off himself.  He would have done it...  He swallowed.  He tried to figure out why he would have done that to himself.

 He remembers himself swaying at the top, bottle of whiskey pressed to his lips and then thrown over the edge when it was empty.  He remembers himself listening for it to hit the bottom and shatter.  He thinks that, maybe, he might have wished that he could shatter, too.  Be broken, and clean.  After that he doesn’t remember.  But he can imagine… he imagines himself walking up to the edge and looking down.  Holding still for a moment, thinking about what it would be like, to fall free.  To _be_ free, for just a few seconds.  And then to feel the pain.  To welcome the pain.  To break through the numbness of the alcohol and the misery and at least feel a pain that was his own, that didn't belong to the Mark.  To tell the Mark to go fuck itself, to break his body so the Mark couldn't use him any more, even if just for a little while.  To hurt it back.  To _fight_ back.  He would have held still for a moment more, daring himself.  And then thrown himself over.  He couldn't really remember.  But it felt right.  It felt like that's what he would have done.    

He sat back down in the mud, legs splayed, head bowed.  He didn't want to live.  But he couldn't die.  He sat there for a very long time.  The sun rose, and set, the earth sucked the heat from his body, he got cold.  The Mark throbbed through him.  Healing him and hurting him at the same time.  He just ignored it, and sat in the mud.  In the night clouds rolled in, heavy and low, and it started to rain.  He got wet.  He didn't care.  The sun rose again.  He noticed that he was healed, because he noticed that his migraine stopped throbbing and started slicing.  Attention no longer divided, the Mark could go back to only hurting him, again.  It sliced and grinded and he ignored it, he gritted his teeth and stayed in the mud, until he couldn't take it any more. He was crying when he gave in, but God help him, he couldn't take it any more.  He could only bear so much.  

His phone had been broken by the fall.  So he had to translocate to a Best Buy and steal a new one.  

 He couldn't die, but he couldn't keep living the way he was living.  His first call on the new phone was to Crowley.                    

*****

_\---Present---_

Dean wakes with the sound of his name on Castiel's lips.  “Dean, Dean.  It's ok.   Shhh.  You're safe.  I'm here.  I'm here with you,  Dean.”  Castiel's mouth presses soft kisses to the back of his neck.  “It's ok.  It's ok.  I'm here.”  Cas is here.  Cas is with him.  He relaxes, marginally, though for a second he doesn't even remember why he is tense.  The room is cool, and dim.  Castiel's hand is warm on Dean's side.  Soft sheets are smooth beneath him.  He is pillowed in a cloud of memory foam, and the scent of Cas.  An open field in Kansas, after a summer storm.  Rain, and earth, and lightning.  The Mark doesn't hurt him.  It burns, still, on his forearm, but it is reduced to an itch that seems far, far away.  Every time Cas kisses him, it recedes a little farther.

“Cas,” his voice is a croak.  He reaches for Castiel's hand.  Now he remembers.  He remembers the red mud.  He remembers the cold, and the pain.  He remembers being desperate enough to throw himself from a cliff, and hope it would hurt when he hit the ground.

Castiel takes Dean’s hand in his own, and presses his face to the back of Dean’s neck.  He felt Dean hurt, in his dream.  He felt Dean hurt and call out for him, and hurt worse when he didn’t answer.  He felt Dean's fear.  It was bitter, and metallic, in his blood.  It felt like he was chewing aluminum foil.  But he's here, now, Dean is safe and Castiel is with him, and he knows what Dean needs, to be ok again. 

He hasn't, always.  Known what Dean needs.  Yes, he knows Dean, and has known him.  Yes, he rebuilt Dean, from the ash.  But he hasn't always known what Dean needed, in his secret heart.  God, how he has been wrong, so wrong, about that.  The first and hardest and most unforgivable wrongness being not seeing that Dean needed him, how badly he needed him, that he needed him always.  But now he knows.  Now he is bound to Dean, and he sees. It steals his breath, a little.  How much Dean needs him, right now, in the dark.  How much Dean needed him, then, in the red mud.

 He presses at Dean’s shoulder, to turn him, so they can be face to face, then pulls him in close, so Dean can feel him, solid and real and warm, so he can feel Dean, and the nightmare-thumping of his heart.  He winds his fingers into the hair at the back of Dean's neck and brings Dean’s face in near to his own, so he can whisper in his ear:  “I'm here, Dean.  You're safe.” 

“My angel.  Cas…”  Dean’s voice breaks, a little, and his arms wind around Cas’ back, resting there, dead weight, like he’s trying to stop Cas from floating away.

Usually Castiel denies it, when Dean calls him that.  But right now, he can feel Dean is unsteady, and he can still feel what Dean felt when he prayed to Castiel and he didn’t come, and he wants so badly, so badly, to erase that memory, to put himself, soul and heart and body, between Dean and suffering, and be his angel again.  

“Do you want to talk about it?”  He asks, and dips his head to press kisses to Dean’s shoulder, his collarbone.

“No.  Just.  C’mere.  Cas.”  Dean takes Cas’ head in his two hands and brings him up to kiss him tentatively on the mouth, like he’s not sure he can, like he’s not sure this is OK.  He doesn’t feel, right now, like anything that good should be able to happen to him.  He doesn’t feel like he should be able to ask for it.  He feels like maybe he should slink away from this bed, this room, this closeness, and find himself a rack.   

“Dean.”  Cas won’t let him.  He holds Dean’s face still in calm hands.  He kisses Dean like he is pure, and sweet, new-made and full of light.  Castiel is none of those things, anymore, but he can be, he can pretend, for Dean.  He wants to, for Dean.  He kisses Dean like he is an angel again.  

He feels Dean’s desire sparking under his skin, little golden sparks, everywhere.  He feels also the black ache that twisted Dean’s heart in his dream loosening, and growing lighter.  When Cas kisses Dean harder, or rougher, bites his lips or presses his tongue deeper, the desire stays, keeps sparking, but the blackness creeps back in.  Dean can’t bear for it to be rough.  He can’t bear to be reminded of the violence.  Castiel isn’t gentle, anymore.  When Dean is away, he sharpens his knives.  But he can be, right now, for Dean.  He wants to be, for Dean.  

Dean wants Castiel to take him slow, and sweet; he wants Castiel to make his whole body blush and smooth away his rough edges until everything is blurry and soft.  He wants this, but he would never ask for it.  He wouldn’t know how.  He wouldn’t know how to say “I want you to be gentle with me.”  He wouldn’t know how to say “I want you to take care of me.”  He wouldn’t know how to say “I want you to go slow.”  Castiel is glad, so glad, that he is bound to Dean now, and can see what Dean needs without having to be told.  And he is beyond glad, he is _joyful_ , that Dean needs and wants something with his whole heart, and that something is _him_ , Castiel; that what Dean needs more than anything right now is something that Castiel can give him.  He would give Dean anything.  He has given himself:  his rebellion against Heaven, his death, his fall from Grace.  He would give more.  Name it, he would kill it.  He would conquer the stars.  He would destroy the sun.  He would sunder the moon and end the tides, forever.  He would empty the sea.  He can give Dean this.  He can give Dean softness, and sweetness.

He whispers in Dean’s ear, again, stroking his hand in his hair at the same time.  “It’s OK, Dean.  I’m here.  I’ll take care of you.”  He presses his lips to Dean’s temple, and just holds Dean’s head against him, for a moment.  He laces the fingers of his free hand into Dean’s.  “Always.  I’ll take care of you always.”  Dean shivers.  Even more quietly, under his breath, Castiel mouths, “I love you, Dean.”  The black cloud of ache around Dean’s heart starts to break apart, and fall away.  Little pinpoints of light start to shine through.  Castiel can feel them, that light is pulsing bright and warm under his skin, too. He wonders if, pressed close like this, Dean can feel it too, if his skin is really hot or if it’s only magic, only in his head.  

“Can you feel it?”  He whispers.  “Your heart.  Your light.”     
“Feel you, Cas.  Don’t stop.”  

Cas doesn’t.  He presses his hand to Dean’s left shoulder, over the place where he gripped him when he raised him from Hell, and grips him anew, as he rocks his hips down and against him.  Dean inhales sharply.  Castiel’s heart swells as he rocks, because he is bound to Dean, he chose it, and it feels good, so good; he can give Dean this, he is bound to Dean and he can give him everything he wants, everything he needs, forever.  He is bound to Dean and as the blackness breaks away from Dean’s heart and the light seeps through, he gets to see it and feel it beneath his skin.  He gets to know that he is the one that took that darkness away, and let the light out again.  

“Everything you want, Dean.  Everything you need.  Forever.”  Castiel promises, solemn, gazing down into Dean’s eyes.  

“Cas.  Come on,”  Dean says, turning his head, like Castiel’s promise is ridiculous.

Castiel says it again.  “Everything you want.  Everything you need.  Forever.”  And he presses two fingers to Dean’s chin, to gently turn his head back.  “Let me see you, Dean.  I want to see you.”  His voice is soft, he doesn’t command this.  He asks.  He asks Dean to let himself be seen.  Dean turns his head but his eyes follow after, drifting back to Castiel’s face, his mouth, finally his eyes.  “So beautiful.”  Dean’s eyelids dip, but he raises them again, because he is brave.  “So brave.”  Castiel holds Dean’s eyes as he releases his hand from Dean’s shoulder, and takes his cock in hand instead.  He strokes gently along Dean’s length, while holding his gaze.  “Love it when you’re brave for me.”  

“Cas,” Dean’s voice wavers.  Dean is already leaking, and Cas drags his palm across Dean’s head to gather the slickness there, and stroke again.  

“You like this,” Castiel whispers, and brushes his lips against Dean's.  “You like it when I’m gentle with you.”  He presses soft kisses to Dean’s neck, and shoulders, his chest.  

Dean doesn’t need to answer, so he doesn’t.  He just repeats “Cas,” and rests his hands on Castiel’s shoulder blades, fingers brushing softly against Castiel’s skin.  

 

“I can feel it.  All over my skin, all underneath it.  Everything is you, everywhere.  It feels so good.  You feel so good.”  He kisses lower, to Dean’s abdomen, to the trail of coarse hair that grows there.  His hands follow him, brushing over Dean’s chest, his nipples.  When his face is between Dean’s legs, he presses his nose into the crease where they meet Dean’s body, and breathes him in.  “So good.  So beautiful.  So brave,” he whispers, throat full of feeling, and when Dean breathes in to reply “Cas,”  Castiel swallows him deep, so that he falters and the breath becomes a sob.  

Castiel finds a pressure, a rhythm, that thrums behind Dean's eyes.  He can feel the echo of it thrum behind his own.  It's new, this echoing.  He loves it.  He is floating above himself, and all he can feel is Dean.  Dean in his mouth.  Dean under his hands.  Dean under his body.  Dean beating, in his heart.  Dean everywhere, sparking, under his skin.  The better Dean feels, the brighter and sharper the sparks pop.  Castiel takes him with long, deep, wet swallows, and when Dean’s hips fuck into his mouth, he lets the back of his throat be battered rather than hold Dean down.  Dean rises higher and higher on the feel of Cas, and Cas follows, golden sparks spiraling out behind him like a Roman candle as he rises.  How high can they rise, before they slip the atmosphere and run out of air?  Castiel is gasping already, light-headed, eyes tearing up.  He can't rise any further, they can't, they will be burned by the sun.  Castiel knows what it will take, to push Dean over the apex of their orbit and into free fall.  He wants it, he is ready for the plummet, so he gasps it out, even as they are being scorched.  “Yours, Dean.  Love you.  Forever.”

“Ca-as” Dean cries out, high and choked, and comes in Cas’ mouth, hot and hard and long.  His back arches up off the bed and again it seems that he will never stop rising, never come down.  Castiel grips him, by his thighs, and swallows; mouth and throat perfectly full, then overflowing, with the warmth and weight and taste of Dean.  Dean settles below him, breath coming in long, soft pants.  Castiel rises, so he can hold Dean close, head pillowed on Dean's chest, arm around his waist.  

“Forever,” Castiel promises again, sealing the oath with a kiss.  

“Cas.  So good to me.  M’ angel,” Dean breathes, when he can, and wraps an arm around Castiel's back, fingers combing through the soft hair at Castiel's nape.  His other hand reaches for Castiel’s aching cock, hard and wet and as of yet untouched.  Castiel pushes the hand away.  “No?”  Dean asks.

“Not yet.”  Not explaining further, he asks “Will you go to see Sam today?”  

Dean pauses, but allows himself to be distracted.  “Maybe… I don’t… you saw him, do you think he wants to see me?.”  

“I think Sam always wants to see you, Dean.”  

"I... Maybe I'll walk in the Pit, first, make sure everything is in order, do some work, quiet the Mark.  Before I go see him."  

"Is the Mark hurting you, now?"  Cas’ voice is so gentle, it is almost afraid.  He doesn't think it is, he thinks he would be able to feel it, through the mark of Dean’s Name, if Dean were hurting, but his mark is new, and he's not sure, and he wants to be sure.  

"No Cas, No.  Not when you're here.  Not when we're like this.  No.  Promise."  

"Ok."  A pause.  "I never want you to hurt."

"I know Cas."  This is hard for Dean.  He doesn't like to talk about the Mark.  It reminds him too much of too many times that were ugly.  He doesn't want to think about those times, about the cold and the pain and the red, coppery mud, when he is laying here with Cas warm against him.  So, he asks.  "What will you do, today?  Sharpen your knives?"  

Castiel looks into Dean's eyes, purposefully, capturing his attention fully, before answering.  "I think I'll stay here."  Sure that Dean's gaze is fixed on his own, he deliberately shifts his eyes to a point over Dean's shoulder.  A point on one of the thick, wooden posts of their bed.  Where an iron manacle hangs, on a short chain of thick links.

Now Dean understands, why Cas didn’t want him to touch, before.  “I might be gone for a long time.”  A dark edge slips in to his voice. “You gonna wait for me?”

“For you, and only for you.”  Castiel rolls in to Dean with his whole body.   “Today, with your Name, God, it’s all over me.  I want to be for nothing, and no one else.  Only for you.  Only yours.  Only here.”  

Dean’s hand tightens around the back of Castiel’s neck.     

“All day, you’ll be out in the Pit, on the racks, you'll visit Sam, and I’ll be here, just here, waiting for you.  Imagining everything you could do to me when you come back.”

Blood vessels break and start to bruise under Dean’s grip on the back of Castiel’s neck.  “Oh?”  His tongue laps careless and broad over Castiel’s face, from the line of his jaw over his cheek.  

“I'm going to imagine you being rough with me.  That's what I want.  That’s what I’ll think about, all day, chained to your bed.  A hundred different ways.  Will you walk in and flip me over without a word, fuck me without touching me anywhere else, as soon as I'm ready to take you, maybe even a little before?  Will you force your tongue into my mouth, deep, and hold my hips down, kiss me until I can't breathe and then fuck my face while I'm gasping?  Will you bite me on my neck, where you've marked me, where you know it makes me scream, and drag your teeth over it, your head draped over my shoulder and your hands trapping me against your chest while you fuck me from behind?  Will your eyes be black, when you fuck me?”  

Dean groans into Castiel’s neck, and his hips rock reflexively against Castiel’s body.  He reaches behind him, for one of the manacles, and locks it reverently over Castiel’s wrist.  

“I'm going to be so ready for you, hard and wrecked and leaking. You could do anything to me, there I'll be, waiting, bound.  Anything.  And I'll want it.”

“Christ, Cas.”

“Will you think about me too?  When you come down from the rack, and your blood is boiling, will think about what you want to do to me?  Will you think about how it would sound if I screamed your name while your hand was clamped over my mouth?  Will you want to drop your Blade and spread your wings and come to me, so you can feel me arch against you while you hold me down and come inside me?  Will you want to make it good for me, Dean?  Or will you just want to tear me apart?”

“Fuckin’ angel,” Dean growls, as he snaps the last manacle in place, on Cas’ left ankle, and spiders his fingers over Cas’ lean calf.  “Perfect.  How are you always so goddamned good for me?”

Castiel closes his eyes and tugs gently on his bonds, relaxing in to them.  “Because I'm yours.”  Dean is on him, then, covering his body and biting his lower lip, fiercely.  And then, like lightning, just as hard and just as fast, he is gone. 

*****

  _\---Past---_

Crowley had known exactly what he needed.  “Gone rabid, have we?  Killing my idiot minions not keeping you sweet, any more?  I was wondering how long you would be able to hold out before you rang.”  

“Are you going to help me, or not?”

“So touchy, squirrel.  A girl likes a little foreplay, first.”  Dean didn't respond to this, so he continued, “But I can see that you're not in the mood for cuddling, today.  Alright, then.  I think we may be able to make an… _arrangement.”_

“I’m listening.”  

“Then listen close.  Right now, when a contract comes due, I send a hell hound to collect.  But hell hounds are stupid.  And messy.  Shocking to my delicate sensibilities, really.  So for the choice jobs, the delicate ones, I’ll send you.  The targets are not negotiable.  The terms are not negotiable.  But I get to avoid the hassle of cleaning up after my furry pets, and you get to take the edge off and tell yourself that you did the marks a favor, by giving it to them clean and saving them from the hell hounds.  Capiche?”

“I don’t like it.”

“Of course you don’t.”  Dean could hear Crowley’s eyes rolling.  “But, surprise, I don’t care whether you like it or not.  Take it or leave it.  Bring in my contracts, or go back to drinking a truly pathetic amount, beating up on poor defenseless demons and passing out in congealed creature blood.  Your choice.” And he hung up.

Dean stared at the phone, for awhile, until the screen went dark.  He _didn’t_ like it.  But he also didn’t think he had the luxury of refusing for a reason as weak as _not liking it_ .   _Not liking it_ was a lot better than waking up in a pool of booze and demon blood every morning, Crowley wasn’t wrong.   _Not liking it_ was a lot better than throwing himself off of a cliff and hoping he’d break.  He _could_ tell himself he was doing the contracts a favor.  It would be disingenuous, and he would feel shitty about it, but it would get him to sleep at night.  If it would keep the Mark quiet, he would do a lot worse.  He knew, he would do a lot worse.    

So he took assignments from Crowley.   _Human_ assignments.  He let himself be sent out like a murderous dog.  His first mark was the mayor of some shit town in Vermont.  Asshole sold his soul to be mayor of a town of less than 10,000 people that no one has ever heard of.  Dean was not impressed, but he understood why this was “delicate.”  Hellhounds tear the throat out of the mayor of a town, even if it is tiny and anonymous, and people are going to ask questions.  That’s the kind of shit that brings the hunters in, ends up with dead demons.  Dean cut the idiot’s throat and threw his corpse in the river.  Went back to his office and used his municipal computer to set up a clumsy, obvious, very criminal trail of credit card fraud.  Missing mayors who have been defrauding the city raise a lot of questions too, but not the same kind that are raised when a body looks like it has been mangled by a phantom, 200 lb dog.  

He didn’t enjoy this, he had been right, he _didn’t like it_ .  But when he tossed that corpse in the river, the Mark flared up, warm instead of burning, and the vise on his head loosened up until he could see straight.  He realized he was hungry.  He actually wanted to eat food.  He felt something besides sour nausea in his stomach.  He rubbed it as it grumbled and thought about hamburgers, and he didn’t want to throw up.  He spent the afternoon lying there, by the river, tossing pebbles in to the water and staring up at the sky and enjoying the fact that his eyes weren’t watering from the pain in his head.  It felt… OK.  It felt _manageable._

It lasted about a day.  Then, his manageable headache started to throb, and spike, again.  And it was worse, so much worse, now that he remembered what it was like to be able to see and eat and _rest_.  That’s the only reason he took the second assignment.  Because his second assignment was a porn star.  This idiot sold his soul for a gigantic dick.  Dean didn’t think this one was especially “delicate,” he thought this one was Crowley just fucking with him.  If this had been presented to him first, he would have refused, with a choice, “eat a bag of porn star dicks, Crowley.”  But it was presented to him when he was leaning doubled over on his bar stool, clutching his head and trying to not to hurl the cheeseburger he had just been scarfing down.  So he threw a twenty on the bar, and translocated to Burbank, where this big-dicked shithead was doing coke at a party with several dozen other big-dicked and big-boobed shitheads (number of these that had sold their souls also:  unknown).  He followed his particular target shithead into the men’s room, and cut deep into both of his wrists with the First Blade.  Pornstar does coke, commits suicide. Not news by anyone’s standards.  

Crowley texted him a winky emoticon with a thumbs up when the soul hit Hell, which he ignored.  Instead, he went immediately to the nearest In-N-Out Burger and ate 2 doubles, animal style-- he wasn’t going to miss his window for cheeseburgers, this time.  

Dean’s third assignment was the one that tipped the scales.  Two days after the pornstar, Crowley assigned him a Ugandan militia leader.  This asshole had sold his soul for an army of child soldiers to fight his bullshit, wacko, religious crusade.  He was a war criminal and paranoid as fuck, protected from his numerous enemies by a meat shield of children 24 hours a day.  Dean actually believed that this did offend Crowley’s sensibilities, such as they were-- it was pretty fucking offensive.  Dean beat the shit out of him before he killed him.  He broke every bone in the asshole’s face, and gutted him with the First Blade instead of just slitting his throat.

It felt amazing.  For the next two days, Dean went past just feeling _manageable_ , into a kind of red-tinted euphoria where nothing hurt and he couldn’t imagine anything ever hurting him again.  He roared in the Impala down empty midwestern interstates at 100 MPH, banging his hand on the roof and singing along with his tapes at the top of his lungs.  When he stopped at night he drank tequila and picked fights and beat up assholes and felt even better.   He was unstoppable, he was invincible, he was alive and howling at the moon and he didn’t _give a shit_.  

The Mark was singing within him, filling him with strength and clarity and elated confidence.  This was great, it felt so good just not to _hurt._  But, even better than the physical sensation, for the first time since taking on the Mark, Dean had hope.  He had an idea about how he could bear the Mark and live with himself.  He could kill people, that’s what the militia leader had made him realize.  He didn’t have a real problem with that.  He could kill people that had it coming. He realized fully that it wasn’t violence, or even murder, that bothered him, in principle.  He could do violence and sleep just fine at night-- after all, violence had been his trade as a hunter.  What bothered him, he now understood, was _injustice_ .  The mayor was corrupt, and the pornstar was an idiot, but a lot of people were corrupt, or idiots, or both, and they didn’t deserve to die for it.  The militia leader was a different story.  He deserved what he got.  He probably deserved worse.  Dean was _glad_ he was dead.  He was _glad_ Crowley had sent him out for that collection.  Independent from how it made the Mark feel, independent from it taking away his hurt, he was _glad_ that he had killed that child-enslaving motherfucker.

It went on like that.  Dean would get assignments and he would kill idiots who made stupid deals, and _not like it_ , but at least he would do it clean.  And then he would get assignments where he would kill evil motherfuckers who had it coming, and he would feel incredible and tear shit up until Crowley came and warned him that Sam was on his trail and he needed to calm the fuck down if he didn’t want to end up cuffed to a chair in the bunker’s dungeon.  “Don’t wanna get got,” he drunkenly told Crowley, on one of these instances, arm over Crowley’s shoulder, as he lurched out of a bar at 2 in the morning.  “Hurts too much.”  He drooled a bit on Crowley’s overcoat.  Did he mean it hurt too much to bear the Mark, or did he mean that it hurt too much to be Dean, to always be fighting and never winning?  Crowley didn’t care, so he didn’t ask.  “Like bein’ _awesome._ ”

“There there squirrel, I know.  I much prefer you this way myself, though I could do with a mite less drool.”

“‘M a squirrel.”  Dean repeated.  “ _Awesome_ squirrel.”   

The next job Crowley sent him on after that was ugly.  Evil motherfucker was a priest, he believed in Heaven and Hell and good and evil and innocence and the human soul and he sold his anyway, so that he could take the memories of the children that trusted him, after he betrayed that trust in every way imaginable.  Dean didn’t hide, when he came for him.  He came with black eyes and hellfire raging behind him, he came with hellhounds screaming and barking and baying with bloodlust. “Hell’s too good for you,” he said, as he gutted him with the First Blade.  And he meant it.  Dean wanted to bring him back, and gut him again.  Over, and over, bring him back, hurt him until he couldn’t hurt any more, and bring him back again.  He wanted this fucker to suffer, and bleed, and he wanted to be the one to do it, Mark singing within him as he cut him again and again and again.  He wanted to transfer his suffering to this evil man, and take it out on his flesh, and feel strong and invincible and _righteous_.  Yes, he wanted to feel righteous again.  Or, maybe, for the first time.

But he couldn’t.  As a footsoldier, as a glorified hellhound, he didn’t have that power.  He could only kill the fucker once.  He knelt over the mangled corpse, light shining down on him through the stained glass in the church where he had taken him, thinking about it for a long time, imagining.  Then, he texted Crowley.   **_Black Spur.  Now._ **

Crowley kept him waiting, of course, appearing an hour later, glancing at his fingernails and greeting Dean with “You rang?”  

Dean is too impatient for Crowley’s banter.  “Who has the Pit, now?”

“What?”

“Lilith is dead.  Alastair is dead.  So, who is in charge, in the Pit.”

Crowley narrows his eyes.  “I suppose I am.”

“I want it.”

“You want the Pit of Hell.  You.  The squirrel who cared too much.”  

“Fuck you Crowley.  Yes.  I want it.  I.  Some of these assholes you send me out for.  Death is too good for them.”  His eyes turn black.  

Crowley actually looks a little bit nervous, at this.  He tries to hide it, too late, by leaning back and straightening his tie.  “I suppose we could make a deal.”  

“What, like, I don’t gank your limey ass right this minute, and you give me what I want?”  

Eyes narrowed again, Crowley replies.  “I don’t think you want to be the King of Hell, dearie, even if you have gotten a taste for the old ultra-violence.”

“What if I do?”  Dean’s eyes are still black. 

“You want to be the one that spends eternity reading every contract that every loser on every earth makes with Hell?  How do you think your fabulous tramp stamp would react to that much sitting around and _not killing people_?”  Crowley asks, glancing at the Mark.  The black fades quickly from Dean’s eyes, as he thinks it through, and he gestures with his beer for Crowley to continue.  “No.  I didn’t think so.  But I do think that, if I give you a mandate in the Pit, you might want to promise to be on my side in any….inter-regnum conflicts.” 

“You want me to have your back.  In Hell.”

“Reductive as always, squirrel, but, yes.”

Dean tosses back the rest of his beer, and stands up.  “Fine.  Easy.  You’re barely evil anymore, anyway.”   

“I’m touched, squirrel.  Truly.  I’m blushing.”  And he snaps his fingers.  “The Pit of Hell is now yours.  If any of the bottom feeders squatting on the racks down there give you any trouble, you have my permission to kill them.”   

Dean rolled his eyes, and was gone, now Master of the Pit of Hell.        

***** 

_\---Present---_

Dean walks in the Pit.  The Mark is quiet now, so quiet, after his time with Cas.  But he wants it to be silent, before he goes to see Sam.  And for that, it will need blood.  So he walks in the Pit.  He walks the endless rows where demons flay souls on their racks.  He looks out over them, and looks for a soul that calls to him.

He doesn't keep all the souls that are sent to him.  He keeps the violent ones; the murderers, the rapists, the pederasts, the sadists.  But he doesn't keep the suicides, he doesn't keep the thieves or the cheats or the poor saps that just made a bad deal and find themselves in Hell after 10 years of shacking up with a porn star or being a billionaire or having the corner office.  Those he sends to Crowley, to his Hell of waiting and waiting.  A Hell where there is nothing to do but wait, and wait, and think about what had gone wrong in life to end up there in a line in Hell for eternity.  And even the souls he keeps, he doesn't keep forever.  They are cleansed, on the rack.  They receive punishment equal to the suffering they dealt in life, and then he releases them, to Purgatory, where they can live in the dim violence.  Never in peace, never in the light, never feeling the love of Heaven, but not suffering any longer.  Under Dean, the Pit is still bloody.  It is still violent.  It still echoes with screams.  But it is fair.  And it is not hopeless.

The souls on the racks are ugly, each ugly in a unique and grotesque manner.  They are oily and black, like night soil, or rancid and putrified, sprouting malignant growths; they are sharp and cruel and static, or they boil and shift nauseatingly at the edges of vision.  Dean's soul shone when Castiel raised him, this he knows, but that was after he had been on the rack for thirty years.  When he got here, it was black with soot and murder and pride and failure, and it swallowed light, instead of shining it out, this is what he believes.  This is what he knows.  Castiel does not agree.  

There are some souls that… call out to him.  Souls that affect him more.  Instead of being merely ugly, they raise something inside of him, something sharp behind his teeth, something vicious and angry.  They seethe under the Mark, and make him want to do violence.  He doesn’t know why these call to him.  He imagines that maybe they committed crimes similar to those of the priest, whose contract brought him here, but he doesn't know for sure and he doesn't want to know.  He doesn’t want the details of those crimes in his mind.

So he doesn’t know what they have done, the souls that he claims as his own, and takes, and breaks, and breaks, in blood and heat and violence.  But he is grateful when a soul calls out to him, and raises the red fog around his eyes, because those souls provide him with a way.  A way to bear the Mark.  A way that he can live with.  

He was the rock in the river that evil broke around too, as a human, and then on Earth as now in Hell, his work was bloody, and it was violent.  The only thing that is different now is that then, on Earth, when he took a monster and hunted them and ended them, sometimes, most of the times, it didn't feel like _enough_ .  The demon, or the werewolf, or the witch would be dead, just dead, and there would be the victims, alive, raw with suffering, and what good did it do them for the creature that had ruined them to be dead?  It wasn't _enough_ , it was never _enough_.

What Dean gives them on the rack is enough.  

A soul calls to him, in the distance.  It shimmers oilily, in a nauseating ripple.  He cannot abide it.  He calls the First Blade, and caresses its hilt with his thumb as his wings flare out behind him.  This wrongness cannot be allowed to continue to exist.  The red rises, behind his black eyes.  He will purge this blight.  It will break around him and Hell and Earth will be free of it, and where it has gone there will be nothing, and only Dean will remain.  He spreads his wings.  He flies.  Where his shadow passes over the racks, demons and souls alike tremble.  They are right to be afraid.  He is aflame.  He is righteous, again.

Stone shakes and breaks under his feet when he lands.  “Master,” prays the demon who was working this rack, dropping to his knees, head bent.  Dean ignores it; this creature is beneath him.  He circles the soul on the rack, tracing its skin with the First Blade.  It opens its mouth to plead, and he cuts its tongue out.  He always cuts their tongues out first; they have nothing to say that he wants to hear.  With that first cut, the red takes him, and Dean is gone, become the Master, become the storm and the dark and the whirlwind, become the guardian of the night at the end of all things.  

He is gone for a long time.

When he returns to himself, he is breathing heavily, and slick with blood.  The rack in front of him is empty, but also covered with blood and black and bone.  The soul that was held there has moved on.  A ring of hushed silence surrounds him, the screams of the Pit quieted on all the racks close enough to have seen Dean become the whirlwind.  The Mark was quiet before, but now it is singing within him.  Now he is powerful, invincible, vast and unstoppable, he is the wind that comes at the end of time and cleanses the Earth.  He stands straight, and flexes his wings; they crackle with silver lightning, and the ring of awed silence around him grows.  Anything, he can do anything, be anything, have anything.  

 _Castiel_ .  That is what he wants.  Now, always, only.   _Castiel._  To be with him when he is filled with this power he can barely contain, to take him into its wake and have him, completely.   _Castiel_.  His angel.  He drops his Blade, it is forgotten.  He spreads his wings, they are more valuable by far, because they can take him to Castiel.  His lips part as he imagines it, how he will appear in his glory and stride to Castiel, cover him with his body and thrust his hand into dark hair and take his soft mouth with hardness, like he is taking it for all of eternity.  He will.  His wings will rise and fall and he will have Castiel, all of him, their bodies will crush together and tears will leak from Castiel’s beautiful eyes when he cries out for Dean, and Dean will only hold Castiel to him harder.

He remembers that this is what Castiel wanted, for him to imagine them together when he came down off the rack.  He remembers that Castiel is waiting for him, naked and chained and spread open, marked with his name and bound to him forever.  He remembers the reason he came to the racks.  To quiet the Mark.  So he could…

His wings fall.  So he could go to see Sam. He picks the First Blade back up, and wipes it clean on his jeans.  His wings rise again, more slowly.  He was right to raise the power of the Mark for this, because he does not think he could do it otherwise.  He closes his eyes, and thinks one more time of Castiel, waiting for him, and travels to Sam.  

He feels it in the air, a slight shiver, as he travels:  Sam has somehow drawn a devil’s trap on the floor of his chamber, and it draws him in.  It cannot hold him, he knows this, but it draws him anyway, slightly off course, to arrive in its center.  He arrives and looks down-- it looks like it was drawn with berry juice.  He steps deliberately to the side, out of its perimeter, and Sam’s eyes widen.  

“Not a very nice way to welcome your brother, Sammy.  I almost don’t feel wanted in my own home.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Don’t call you wh--”  But he doesn’t finish.                                       

“You’re not my brother.”   

“Sammy-- Sam.  Come on.  What’s it gonna take?  I know you saw Cas, talked to him.  You just saw me step out of a devil’s trap.  Why do you have to be so goddamned stubborn?  Why can’t you believe that it’s me.”

“I’m going to kill you.”   

“Not an answer.”   

“You’re right, I did see Cas.  And you _hurt_ him.  He was covered in bites, and bruises.  You used blood magic on him, to bind him.  You _hurt him.”_

“I didn't--” Sam is not hearing it.

“ **Dean** would never do that.   **Dean** would never hurt Cas.   **Dean** loves Cas.”

“I do-- He wanted--”  
  
“Nobody wants that.”  Sam looks disgusted, and a frost breaks over Dean’s heart.  Sam’s right.  Dean does love Cas.  Dean never would hurt Cas.  Dean didn’t hurt him, and he hates that his brother thinks that he did.  Thinks that he _could_ .  Even if he were a demon.  He still doesn’t think he could do that.  He tries to explain again.  He’s glad that he took to the rack, before this, because otherwise he thinks there would be a danger of violence, instead of explanation.    
  
“He wanted it.  He wanted every moment of it.  He wanted more, and would have taken it if I’d let him.”  Sam’s cheeks are dark with a hateful blush, and Dean realizes that Sam thinks he’s gloating.  

“You’re a monster.”

He decides to try another track. “Didn’t he tell you?  He said that he told you.  He said that you tried to exorcise him, and couldn’t, he said that you recognized my name.  Can’t have it both ways, Sam.  If I used blood magic on him, I’m Dean.  If I’m not Dean, I couldn’t have done that, and I sure as shit couldn’t have stepped right out of your devil’s trap.  So which is it?”  

“I don’t know.  I don’t know how you twisted… what you did when you put that mark on him.  I don’t know how you did it.  I don’t know why I can’t exorcise you, I don’t know why a devil’s trap doesn’t hold you, I don’t know why holy water doesn’t burn you.  But I’m going to figure it out, and I’m going to free Cas, and I’m going to put you down.  I’m not going to let you keep wearing my brother’s face.”

Dean shakes his head sadly.  “This is my real face, Sam.  Maybe this is the first time you’ve ever really seen it, though.  I’m sorry it disgusts you so much.”  The anger on Sam’s face breaks, just for the merest second, at that, so fast that Dean thinks he might have imagined it.  “But even if you hate me, I’m not going to let you go off and do something that’s going to get you hurt or end the world to try to bring me back.  I don’t want another cure that’s worse than the disease. I don’t want you to kill Death for me.  I don’t want you to sell your soul.  I don’t want the Earth to be covered in Darkness.  So you can hate me all you want, but you’re gonna stay right here.  Where you’re safe.  Where I can keep you out of trouble.”

His heart is pounding, and his fists clench at his sides.  This is about how every conversation he and Sam have had since he turned has gone.  Sam just doesn’t believe him.  Not yet.  He clenches his teeth and wonders what it’s going to take-- the exorcisms, the holy water, the trap, his Name, none of it has been enough.  What is it going to take, for them to move forward, out of this stalemate that they circle each other in, now?  Maybe if Cas puts a fucking shirt on before the next time he comes to visit.  And smiles and--

“ _Am_ I safe here?”  Sam asks, and Dean supposes Sam’s not wrong to be worried about his safety since he has, in fact, been kidnapped and imprisoned against his will in a cage in the Pit of Hell-- and the last time that happened it didn’t go so well for him.  But it hurts Dean anyway, to know that Sam thinks he might not be safe, around him.

“What will it take, Sam, to make you believe?  Just tell me.”

“Let me go back to the bunker, I can--”

“No.”  The anger on Sam’s face rises back from a simmer to a boil.  Dean wants so badly to see his brother’s face without that flush of anger on it, again.  So he continues, even though he thinks maybe this is one concession too far, that he is supposed to be the Master here.  “But we have a library here.  You’d like it, it has about a million dusty books, and it looks just like--”  He cuts himself off.  He doesn’t want to think about their childhood here, now, while Sam is staring at him like that, no doubt thinking about all the ways he could try to put him down, like a dog.  Instead, he continues, “Cas will bring you anything you want, if you ask him for it.”

Sam doesn’t reply to this, looking thoughtful, a million gears churning so loud in his head that Dean can almost hear them.

“You’re welcome,”  Dean says bitterly, as the silence stretches on.  He has cracked open the stalemate, but it doesn’t feel good.  It never does.    

Sam comes out of his reverie to reply “Thank you,” reflexively, before he can think about what he is doing and stop himself.  But it doesn’t matter, he only says it to a smooth wall of rock, because Dean is gone.   

***** 

_\---Past---_

Dean didn't take the Pit unopposed.  The demons hated him, because he was human, and beautiful; they feared him, because he had been their enemy and now he ruled them, with an angel by his side.  They resisted him.  Or they tried.  Mammon came to him first, strode up to the black throne he sat in the inner sanctum, and dropped a spear at his feet, in challenge.  Mammon was ten feet tall, winged and horned and thickly muscled, wicked claws scratching at the marble floor.  He spat, reeking and burning, in Dean's face, and laughed. "I'm going to fuck you on that spear until there's nothing left of you, pretty," he howled, sharp teeth flashing.  Castiel had lurched forward with a growl, angel blade drawn, furious and ready to slay this monster.  But Dean stopped him with a raised hand.  He wiped the foul glob away, almost casually, with a thumb, and rose from his throne, calling the First Blade.  He didn't say one word.  He gestured, with the Blade, for Mammon to pick up his spear, and then, unconcerned, barely even paying attention, he walked up to Mammon and slit his throat.  Yes, Mammon tried to defend himself, to strike at Dean, but where he struck, Dean wasn't, and where he defended, Dean had only feinted, and by the time he realized, his black blood was already gushing from an eight inch cut in his scaly neck.

There were witnesses, to this, the other demons waiting on Dean's judgement in the inner sanctum.  They fled when Dean looked up from Mammon's steaming corpse, eyes black, First Blade in a rigid grip at his side, Mark pulsing red.  And they told what they had seen, they whispered it in every corner of Hell, some hushed, some boastful, but many did not believe the story, or thought themselves stronger than Mammon.  This is what Belial thought.  He came next.  He approached Dean's throne, days later, arrogant, spinning cruel knives in cruel hands.  He did not throw them at Dean's feet in challenge, as Mammon had; he did not wait for Dean to meet him, he only attacked.  He threw one knife directly at Dean's head, arm flashing in a blur of speed, drawing another from a sheath on his back to replace it before its flight was complete.  

The thrown knife clanged against the dark iron of Dean's throne and fell to rest on an empty seat.  Dean was not there, though he had been when the knife was thrown.  He was behind Belial, and he whispered, humorless, eyes black, "You missed," as he braced Belial's head in one hand and cut his throat with the First Blade in the other.  Breathing heavily, he had dropped Belial's corpse at his feet and looked at Castiel, who was standing with his hands clenched, white knuckled, behind his back.  "What the fuck is wrong with these guys?"  Dean had asked, and then, maybe even slightly disappointed, continued "I remember them being harder to kill."

“You’re stronger now,” Castiel had told him, body rigid and locked tight with anger at the threat to Dean, but voice somehow soft and careful.  “They can’t touch you.  You have a mandate to stand above them.”  

“A mandate, huh?  So I’m like, demon-proof?  Then why are you so pissed off?”  

“They shouldn’t _dare_ ,” Castiel hissed in response.  “You shouldn’t have killed him so quickly.  You shouldn’t have bothered with him at all.  You should have let me have him.  I would have shown him the wrath of the Lord.”  Castiel's hand was locked tight around his angel blade, and his eyes were on fire.  Dean wanted him, entirely, then, the bloodlust of his fight with Belial turned into something else, something softer and warmer that crashed against his heart just the same.  

He was in front of Castiel in a blink of his black eyes, then, crowding into his space, air hot between them, hips canted forward, hands on Castiel’s arms.  Castiel’s jaw was hard, but not as hard as his eyes, his gaze turned into himself, maybe imagining what he would have done, if Dean had let him take Belial.  He was so fierce and beautiful in his desire to protect Dean that Dean thought his heart might break.  This is what Castiel must have looked like, when he did the work of Heaven.  Righteous and dangerous, pure and angry and sure.  “You’re not a weapon, any more, Cas.  You don’t have to do that, any more.  You don’t have to do that, for me.”

Castiel’s gaze turned outward again, and his eyes met Dean’s, sparking dangerously, making Dean's breath catch in his throat at the fury there, so tightly contained.  Not for the first time.  “They shouldn’t _dare_.”  He repeated, angrier on Dean’s behalf than Dean had been, even when he swung the knife.  “I will be the one, who teaches them.  I will bring them death.”  He says it so matter-of-factly, it is not a question, it is not a threat.  Castiel will walk among the demons, and he will teach them the fear of the Lord, and if they do not tremble before him he will bring them the true death.  It doesn’t matter that Dean is untouchable, with his mandate.  It doesn’t matter that Dean has not asked this of him.  Their disrespect is unacceptable.  It is anathema.  Castiel will correct it.  “No one touches you,” he growls, and locks his hands behind Dean’s neck, drawing him in close.  “No one else,” and then he is taking Dean’s lips with his teeth, opening up his mouth and pressing inside, wet and desperate and deep.  This kiss is rougher than what they have shared; Castiel pulls and claws and forces his way in and all of Dean's breaths are catching now.  This is not the gentle blue flame of a slow burn.  This is a wildfire.  This will consume them both.

“Cas,” Dean chokes out, “Castiel,” clawing at Castiel’s back, pulling him closer, tighter, trying to pull him inside and keep him there, until Castiel finally breaks away, panting.

“No one else,” Cas repeated.  “Never again.”   

*****

  _\---Present---_

The air feels heavier, now that Castiel is bound to Dean.  Heavy with his presence; dark, and powerful, hot and close, covering Castiel, caressing his naked body.  Heavy with Dean’s scent; whiskey and leather and the fire and smoke of the Pit.  Castiel is drugged on it.  His lips feel swollen; his skin tingles everywhere, like a storm is coming.  Dean is the storm, and he crackles in the air, charging it with static and sparking on Castiel’s skin.  Castiel is hard and leaking; his back arching minutely and his hips flexing off the bed in small, traitorous movements that stir the air over his exposed skin.  He wants.  It is excruciating.  It is exquisite.     

There is enough slack in his bonds that he could touch himself, or roll on to his stomach to gain some relief, but he does not do these things.  He is here, he has chosen to stay here today, so that his body, and the breath in his lungs, and the reckless beating of his heart belong all, and only, to Dean.  He does not touch himself because no one has the right to touch him but Dean, now.  No one else, ever again.  He sighs, and he shivers, and he imagines.  It is not hard to imagine, with Dean’s scent so heavy in the air, and the edges of himself burned and blurred away by the mark on his neck, leaving him raw, and exposed, and open.   _Dean_ he whispers under his breath as he closes his eyes.   _Dean._

He can feel it when Dean turns red and takes to the rack.  He can feel it for a long, long time.  It burns him from the inside out.  It is vicious and strong and it is _righteous_.  With that heat burning through him he remembers the first time he ever saw Dean, in Hell.  He remembers the moment he was lost.   

He can feel it when Dean returns to himself, and steps down, swelling with the power singing within him.  He feels it like a physical blow when Dean’s inner eye turns to him, Castiel, and he whines with the intensity of Dean’s want.  It’s almost like it’s really happening to him, when Dean imagines striding to him, covering him, claiming what is his with rough hands and a hard mouth.  It’s _almost_ real, but it is not real, and Castiel cries out, again, _Dean,_ back fully arched off the bed.   _Please_ , he thinks, _Please.  Come for me._

But Dean doesn’t come, not just then.  He knows that Dean has gone to Sam, knows it from the bite of pain and regret he feels, he knows Dean cannot come to him, not yet, not until he has been with his brother.  But he doesn’t know if he can endure it.  Left here, alone, untouched, aching, wanting, _needing_ .  Tears leak from the corners of his eyes as he clutches soft sheets in rigid hands.  He rolls, side to side, as far as he dares, he puts his feet on the bed and slides first one leg, then the other, up towards his body and then away.   _Please.  Let me be yours_ .  He clenches his eyes and imagines, to try to take the pressure off, imagines himself riding Dean's cock, while Dean holds him to his chest, hands spread out and slipping on his sweaty back.  He imagines Dean’s hands in his hair, pulling back to expose his throat.  He imagines teeth on his Adam’s apple, black wings caressing him and holding him close.  His blood burns in his veins, with his desire, and with Dean’s, and it’s too much.  It’s too much.  His eye squeeze shut and he cries out, “Dean,” and comes, completely untouched.   _Please_ , he thinks.   _Please._   

*****  

_\---Past---_

Castiel did walk among the demons, after that, and he did teach them, and many of them did meet the true death.  They became afraid.  There was a hush in the Pit, the deep breath before the plunge.  And it broke when Duriel, Andariel, and Yeteriel came for Dean, together.  Demons don't cooperate, and these didn't, rather, they each thought they would have a better chance of surviving if they used the others as meat shields when they attacked.  They were wrong, they had no chance of surviving.  In one motion, one long drive of the First Blade, Dean took Duriel's guts, Andariel's heart, Yeteriel's head.  This rolled, lopsided and thumping, across the floor of the inner sanctum, leaving blood prints behind it in the sudden quiet.  Castiel moved forward and picked it up.  He looked at it for one long second, Yeteriel's tongue lolling bloodless from his cruel mouth, and then he turned and drove it down on to one of the spiked iron embellishments on the back of Dean's throne.              

These were the last that challenged him openly.  The hosts of Hell hated him, still, they burned him in effigy in the pits of their hovels and cursed his name, but they feared him more, and their fear of Castiel was tangible, incendiary.  Because Dean only killed them, quickly, easily, almost absentmindedly, when challenged.  Castiel _taught_ them, first, and his lessons were more terrible than death, by far.

No, they didn’t challenge him, but a lack of open defiance wasn’t enough.  It might have been for Dean, but it wasn’t for Castiel.  Castiel called them all to the inner sanctum, all the demons that remained, the thinned and harried legions of Hell.  He gathered them and told them, “This is your Master.  You obey him before all others.  You put his whim before your own life.  You fear the day his eye turns on you.  You fear the day that I think it should have.”  At this he looked casually at Yeteriel’s head, still skewered, now dessicated, on the back of Dean’s throne.  

The gathered demons prostrated themselves, and it still wasn’t enough.  Castiel looked out among them, and chose the two ugliest, meanest, grandma-eating motherfuckers in the kneeling throng, and he walked out, and he put his Angel Blade through their hearts as they kneeled.  While the rest watched, laid low in obeisance.  They were afraid, these evil creatures, when he started to kill, and rightly so.  They were afraid he would kill them all.  They tried to flee, chaotic, tearing and gnashing at each other, clawed feet slashing at those who fell to the ground in the press, as they fled.  Castiel caught the slowest five.  He killed them, too.  

Dean was obeyed, after that.  Castiel was obeyed, after that.  The demons thought they were lucky that they hadn't all been killed.  They were right.  Dean had considered killing them all, or letting Castiel do it.  After Yeteriel, after he realized he could.  But if there were no demons, then there would be no one else to put souls on the rack but Dean and Cas.  And Dean didn't think they could do that.  He didn't think they could be the only ones.  He didn't want that to be all that they had or could have in their lives, just pain and blood and the rack for eternity.  It would keep the Mark quiet, but it would be no kind of life.  He didn't want that for himself.  And he wanted it even less for Cas.  So he let them live.  The weak ones, the stupid ones, the ones that hadn't challenged him and wouldn't.        

And he ruled.               

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for past Dean self-harm.


	3. Castiel Falls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He was burning. He was freezing. He was Falling. And it hurt. Heavenly Father, how it hurt. How could it be possible, to feel this much pain, and still be made of his Father’s love? It wasn’t possible. He wasn’t an angel any more. He knew it. He knew it and that is why tears leaked silently, steadily, from the corners of his eyes. This is what he had chosen. This is what it felt like, to Fall. "Dean," he thought he called out, his voice weak, over and over. "Dean, I’m so cold."

_And the sign flashed out its warning._  
_And the words that it was forming_  
_Said the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls._  
_The tenement halls._  
_Whisper, the sounds of silence._  
\--Simon and Garfunkel, Sounds of Silence

 

_\---Past---_

Castiel laid his halo down at the Gates of Hell.  And that is how he began to Fall.

 _Come with me_ , Dean had said.   _Need you.  Come with me.  Please._  And Dean had kissed him-- so soft, so gentle.  And Dean had warned him.   _Heaven, Hell, and Earth will all hunt you_ .  And.   _You won’t get your grace back._  And. _You’ll lose your wings._ The warnings didn’t matter, though.  The kiss had made him so sure.  And he was not afraid.  So Dean had wrapped him in his arms-- strong, tight-- and then his black wings-- soft, sleek-- and then with his love--overpowering--, and the intent to carry him to the Pit.  To carry him home.  

He had clung on, his arms wrapped around Dean’s waist, his head pressed against his chest, and that was the moment he began to wonder if it would hurt.  To Fall.

It would.  Yes.  It would.

More than he had time to imagine before Dean’s feet landed on hot rock and Dean’s wings clutched against him more tightly, protective, and he felt the rumble in Dean’s chest as he heard him say “ ‘The Fuck?”  

“Dean?  What’s wrong?”  Castiel asked, turning, parting Dean’s wings-- glorious, they still felt glorious, even with some unidentified threat looming-- with his hands.  He saw as they parted that they were not in the Pit.  They were at the Gates.  Behind them, the Styx murmured sadly as it passed easily by.  On its far banks, lost souls shambled, directionless, mindless, bobbing against each other and moaning, all pale, all empty.  In front of them, a rock face, black, too high to see the top, too long to see the ends, stretching above and into the distance forever.  Set directly in front of them, a single, iron, gate.  Bars of iron looking ancient, and cold.  Behind it, the flames.  In front of it, the Gatekeepers.

Charon, ghostly, face obscured by wisps of white hair, fingers long and thin and knobby-knuckled, pale eyes bulging.  Cerebrus, black, gleaming, large as a horse, three-headed, one head snapping in mindless rage, one swivelling with eyes narrowed and ears back, one baring its fangs in a snarl.  Heimdall, martial, unmoving, fully armored and eyes closed, leaning against his two-handed sword.  

“Master,” Charon keened, his voice a high whine and also a rough whisper, both at once.  

“‘The Fuck?”  Dean repeated, and begin to stride for the gate.  He paused, affronted, when the Gatekeepers did not move aside to pass him.  Heimdall remained stationary.  Charon smirked, like he knew something Dean didn’t and relished the knowledge.  Cerebrus’ snarling head snapped at him.  

“Not funny guys,” Dean growled.  Then, even lower.  “Let us pass.”

“No.”  Charon tittered, waving his hands out in front of him in vague gestures, as if to ward Dean away.   Cerebrus barked, sharply.  The corner of Heimdall’s mouth tilted up a fraction.

“No?”  Dean’s eyes flicked black.  “Ok, then.”  And he reached out his right hand, to call the First Blade.  “Mark will sing to me, if I get you.  Sing real sweet.”

Charon’s hand waving became faster, more insistent, while Heimdall’s hands twisted fractionally to grip his sword better, and all three pairs of ears on Cerebrus bristled forward.  “You may pass, of course, Master, of course.  But not… that one,” he spat, eyes side-winding to indicate Castiel.  “That one… he belongs to Yahweh.  He cannot pass.  It is why your flight was interrupted, Master, so sorry.”  He didn’t sound very sorry.  He sounded very, very, amused, and his speech was a nervous giggle.  

“He’s with me,” Dean barked.  

Charon bowed his head, and the pitch of his voice rose even higher.  “Then you will have to stay outside the gates, Master.”

“You must not be following the tabloids down here, whiz kid.  I’m even less patient with demonic assholes now then I used to be, when I used to just kill them.”  Charon’s eyes widened, but Heimdall’s smile twisted up closer to a smirk.  “Besides,” and now he looks at Castiel, for the first time during this exchange.  “You’ve been in here before.  How’d you get in to the Pit when you… the last time you were here.”  

Castiel is looking at Charon when he replies, steel in his eyes and in his voice.  “When I came for you, Dean, I was with the whole Garrison.”  Charon hisses, and his skin becomes a degree more pale.  One of Cerebrus’ heads whines.  “We killed the Gatekeepers.  They couldn’t stand before us,” this last with contempt.  Heimdall’s shoulders slump, ashamed.  

Dean finally calls the First Blade, then.  “Sounds like a plan.”  Heimdall’s eyes blink open, but Castiel holds Dean back from advancing with a hand on his bicep.  

“No, Dean.  There’s another way.”

“I dunno Cas, I kind of like this way.”  He licks at his canines and eyes a shrinking Charon.  “This guy’s an asshole.”

Castiel draws Dean close to him, to try to talk to him unheard, though he doubts he is successful in this, as Charon continues to titter at conspicuous intervals during the conversation.  “Dean, I don’t want to… I have come here to be with you.  As long as you remain the Master.  Always.  I don’t want to have to fight for every movement, every entry, every exit, forever.”

“Don’t mind fighting for you Cas.  I told you before.   _Anything_.  These guys are lightweights, anyway.”  

“I know, Dean.  I know.  But…you don’t have to.  There’s another way.”  Castiel presses Dean back away from him, and approaches Charon.  

“Lucifer, my brother, walked among you freely, for eons, after the Creation,” he began.  

“Yessssss,” Charon hissed gleefully, clearly seeing where this was going and loving it.  

“And why was that?”  Cas asks, rhetorically.

“Because he was Fallen!  Fallen!  The Morningstar, Fallen!”  Charon’s screeching is almost orgiastic now.  

“Then Fallen I will be.”

“Wait, what, Cas, no!”  Dean tries to interrupt. He grasps at Castiel, bringing him back in close again.  “You don’t have to do this, Cas.  Not for me.  Let me just kill these guys.  We’ll find another way.”

“This was the decision, Dean.  This was the choice you offered me, when you said ‘come with me’.  This is what I decided, when I said ‘yes.’  That I would Fall.  This was the choice I made.  It was already done when you wrapped your wings around me.  It was already done when you said Please.”   _It was already done when I touched you, the very first time.  It was already done before that._

“I just didn’t think…”  Dean closes his eyes, green again now, and breathes deep.  “I just didn’t think it would happen like this.  So fast.  So soon.”

Castiel takes Dean’s face in his hands then, and waits for Dean’s eyes to open again, so he can stare in to them.  “Do you want me with you, Dean?  Did you mean it?”

Dean swallows.  “Yes.”  

“You said _Anything_.  You said that is what you would do, to keep me with you.  Do you think I would give you less?”

Dean shakes his head, mutely.  “It’s just this… it’s so much, Cas.  It’s so much.”  

“I understand.  Close your eyes.”  

“Cas,”

“Close.  Your.  Eyes.”

Dean does, and he falls to his knees a moment later when a light like a nuclear detonation erupts at the Gates.  He hears a roar as behind him the lost souls are all, to a one, blinded.  The roar fades with the light, and what he hears is a kind of wicked static, and Cerebrus whining above it.  He feels Castiel’s hand on his shoulder, and he opens his eyes.  Castiel is holding a golden bracelet out to him in his free hand.  Dean can see that Castiel’s name is etched in to it.  “Take it,” Castiel says tiredly, when he sees that Dean’s eyes are open.    

“Cas, what..”

“Take it,” Castiel orders again, his voice a rough plea.  

“His halo,” Charon screeches, baring sharp, rotted teeth.  “ _Angel no longer.  Fallen!_ ”  

Dean takes a deep breath, and accepts the bracelet.  He locks it around his left wrist.  “Cas.  Cas.  Jesus.  Cas.”  

Castiel stumbles into Dean, and collapses in an embrace against him.  “Take me home, now Dean.”

This time, the Gatekeepers let them pass.         

*****

_\---Present---_

After his argument with Sam, Dean retreats to the chambers he shares with Cas, needing refuge, and comfort, and understanding, and not the heat and hardness and violence of the Pit.  He is horrified, then, when he arrives, at how he finds Castiel.  Chained to the bed, wrists and ankles rubbed raw, hair wrecked, naked and covered with thick, obscene splotches of his own come.  Dean's heart is in his throat when he chokes out, “Cas,” and rushes to the bed.  Cas is sleeping.  Chained up and fucked out and sleeping, as if this is normal.  As if this should ever be normal.

“Dean, what--”  Dean is frantically unlocking the cuffs on Cas’ wrists, and ankles, a pained expression on his face.  “Dean, what’s wrong?”  

“God, Cas, are you OK?”  

Castiel is confused, and he reaches out to grasp one of Dean’s frantic hands.  “Of course I’m OK.  What’s wrong?”  

“I just.  You just.  I just left you here, like this, and now you’re… you're like... like you…God.”  Dean sinks down next to Cas on the bed, and hangs his head.

“Dean, I don’t understand what’s going on.  I wanted to stay here like this.  I asked you.  Do you remember?”

“I remember, Cas, but I shouldn’t have, God.  You’re…”  He gestures a hand at Cas’ body.  

“Dean, look at me.”  He tugs on Dean’s hand until Dean has to turn to face him.  “What’s wrong.”  

Dean’s face crumbles.  “Sam, I went to see Sam, and he said.”  He can’t get it out.

“What did Sam say?”  

“He said I was a monster.  For what I did to you.  What I’ve done to you.  What I’ve turned you in to.  You used to be an angel, and you were so bright, and pure, and now…  Now, I’ve ruined you.”  He starts to cry.  His voice is broken, and rough.  “He was right.  I’ve ruined you, Cas.  God.  I’m so sorry.”  His body is shaking with his sobs.  “I’m so sorry.  I knew I would, I knew I would ruin you, I always knew, but I thought it would take longer, I didn’t think it would happen this fast, I thought…”  

“Dean.  Ssshhh Dean.  You didn't hurt me.  You didn't ruin me.  You couldn't, ever.  You gave me what I wanted, what I wanted so much. It felt so good Dean, I felt so good, here, waiting for you, belonging to you.  I felt wanted.  I felt safe.  I would wait for you, always.  Belong to you, always.  Sam doesn't understand. but that doesn't mean you're a monster.”

Dean doesn’t hear him, he is somewhere else, Cas can tell, somewhere where he ruined Cas with his love instead of saving him from the torment of the angels, somewhere where he is breathing too hard, too fast, choking on his own breath, his tears, somewhere he can’t hear Castiel as he whispers, “Dean, Dean.  Dean.”  He is far away from Castiel, Castiel can feel it through their bond, he is far away and he is spinning and it is dark and he is the monster that haunts the darkness, horned and ugly and evil, stalking the shadows and only coming out to ruin pure things.  He doesn’t want to ruin them, God, he doesn’t, he weeps for what he takes, but he ruins them anyway, because he is so dark, inside, and he doesn’t know how to do anything else.

Why does Dean go there, Castiel wonders, when it is so warm here?  And how can Castiel bring him back, to where it is soft and bright?  

He knows.  He kisses Dean, holding his face between two careful hands.  Dean goes rigid at first, with shock, but Castiel is persistent, and gentle.  He holds this kiss until Dean relaxes in to it, then he withdraws and pulls Dean down against him, pillowing Dean’s head on his chest.  Dean hides his eyes against Cas’ body.  “M sorry, Cas.”  His tears fall on Cas’ chest, weak, and silent, and slow. “‘M so sorry.    

Castiel closes his eyes, and strokes his hand through Dean’s hair.  “Dean.  Dean, Dean, Dean.”  His voice is soft and dark, like smoke.  His poor Dean.  His beautiful Dean.  The suffering that he takes on to himself, sometimes.  Needlessly.  “I love you, Dean.”  That makes Dean cry harder.  Castiel strokes softly and lets him, lets him cry and whisper, “I’m so sorry,” into Castiel’s skin, over and over, and he says, over and over in return:  “It’s ok.  It’s alright,” but not “I love you, Dean” again, because though it is true it just seems to make this worse.  Instead he tries “I'm happy with you.  So happy.  Never this happy in Heaven, Dean, believe me.  Please believe me.  Please don't punish yourself, anymore.”

“But, Cas,” Dean says, and sits up a little bit, taking in Cas’ naked body, and his face breaks again.  His voice becomes a shaky whisper when he says, “I was out on the racks, I was _breaking_ people, while you were here, alone, like this...I didn’t take care of you.  I didn’t…”  He rubs the heels of his hands over his eyes, and sobs into them once.  “But I'm going to.  I'm going to do better,  I promise you, Cas.”  Then he stands and walks on shaky legs in to their bathroom, wiping his eyes again on his forearm  as he goes.  Cas leans back and watches him with gentle eyes, not sure what he can or should do.  He hears rustling, and running water.  Dean emerges, eyes red and puffy, carrying a basin of steaming, sandalwood-scented water, and a soft washcloth.  He sits down again on the bed and brushes Castiel’s hair back from his face, trying to tame it down.  Castiel looks at him. “Dean?”

Dean hangs his head.  “Just.  Cas.  Just let me.”  He looks back up, and his eyes are rimmed in red, welling with tears, so vulnerable, so sad.  “Just let me, please.”  His voice breaks on the _please_.  “I gotta take care of you, now.”

Cas leans back again, and closes his eyes.  “Ok, Dean.  Ok.  But,”  he opens his eyes and locks them on Dean.  “You don’t have to.  Know that.  You don’t have to.  I love you.”

“I do have to, Cas.  Have to take care of you.  Have to do better.”  And he starts at Castiel’s stomach, dipping the washcloth in the warm, scented water and scrubbing gently at the dried, tacky come there until no trace of it remains, and Castiel’s skin is just fresh, and pink, and clean.  He cleans Castiel’s stomach and chest in this way and then carefully strokes Castiel’s cock, soft and warm, with the washcloth, and tucks it down and away in a nest of coarse black curls, kissing gently at the base as he arranges it reverently.

Next he attends to Castiel’s ankles.  He rubs warmth into them with strong fingers as he heals the raw, chafed skin.  Normally, Castiel prefers to keep the marks, but he understands that Dean needs to do this, to make him whole, now, so he does not protest.  Dean washes Castiel's healed ankles and feet with the fragrant water and places a single, soft, kiss on the knob of bone on the interior of each one.  “Love your feet, Cas,” he murmurs, as he kisses again.  “Because they can take you to me.”

“Always take me to you Dean, no matter where you are, promise.”

Dean hides his reaction to this by kissing again on the tops of Castiel's feet, and then on the arches.  He traces a finger over the left arch, gently, like he is trying to memorize the angle of its rise so he can recreate it in a perfect monument.  Of marble, or ivory.  He smooths his hands up Castiel's legs, over his abdomen, his chest, following with his body until he finds Castiel's wrists.  He spends a long time on these, healing them with careful trickles of his power, making the skin anew, washing and kissing and washing again.  Castiel's fingers start to tingle.  

“Feels good, Dean.”

“Mmmmm,” Dean replies, his lips brushing against the veins on the inside of Castiel's wrist, where they linger.  “Beautiful hands, Cas, feel so good when they touch me.  So strong.  Always so sure.”

“Strong for you, Dean, always, promise.”

Dean takes Castiel's right hand in both of his own and kisses all over its palm, his lips light and careful.  When he is done he folds it down gently onto Castiel's chest, then picks up Castiel's left hand too.  He presses the same soft kisses into it, covering it completely with reverent lips, before also folding it down onto Castiel's chest, so his two hands rest folded there.  

Castiel is now fresh and clean, his hair smoothed back, fragrant of sandalwood, his hands resting peacefully on his chest.  Dean goes to their dresser and pulls out a soft, white, blanket, lamb’s wool, beautiful, and covers Castiel's nakedness with it from chin to toe.  “This is how I should take care of you, angel,” he says, more confident now than he has been since he arrived.  “Just like this.”

“Yes, Dean,” Castiel replies, eyes heavy, sleepy again now that he is clean and warm.  “Just like this,” he whispers, and his breaths become even and shallow as he drifts in to easy sleep.

Dean watches him sleep for a long time, without touching, just sitting on the edge of the bed.

*****

_\---Past---_

He was burning.  He was freezing.  He was Falling.  And it hurt.  Heavenly Father, how it hurt.  How could it be possible, to feel this much pain, and still be made of his Father’s love?  It wasn’t possible.  He wasn’t an angel any more.  He knew it.  He knew it and that is why tears leaked silently, steadily, from the corners of his eyes.  This is what he had chosen.  This is what it felt like, to Fall.   _Dean_ , he thought he called out, his voice weak, over and over.   _Dean, I’m so cold_.

Gentle hands paused in pressing chips of ice to his cracked lips.  “You’re burning up, Cas.  You’re on fire.”   _No, Dean, I’m so cold_.      

“Cas, you gotta tell me what I can do.  Please.  Tell me what I can do.”  That voice was so afraid.  Castiel's hands balled into fists and his eyes squeezed shut around another tear.  He could feel Dean’s hands but not his body.  He thought he might be able to be warm, again, if only he could be closer to Dean.    

“I can’t feel you.  Where are you, Dean?  I need to feel you.  You’re so far away.  It’s so cold.”  

“Ok, Cas.  Ok.”  Dean had been sitting cross-legged on their bed, with Castiel’s head in his lap, but he scooted back, now, to lean against the headboard and spread his legs.  He drew Castiel up against him, and held him tight, back to chest.  “I’m here, Cas.  I’m right here.  I’m right here,” and he ran his hands carefully over the burning skin of Castiel’s arms.   

Castiel cried out, when his shoulder blades brushed against Dean’s body.  “It hurts, Dean.  My wings.  They’re slicing them away.  It hurts.  Everywhere, now, forever, my wings, they're taking them, IT HURTS, Dean, Dean.”  

Dean didn't understand all of that, he usually doesn't understand how the Angels inhabit forever, but he understands perfectly how Cas’ cries make him feel.  What they make him want to do.  “Who’s slicing you, Cas?  Give me a name,” he voices this in a deadly growl.  “They’re dead men walking.  Dead in 5 minutes.  Dead before you’ll notice I’m gone.”  And though there was murder in his voice, and worse than murder, he turned Castiel gently, so his back wasn’t pressing against him anymore, and instead pillowed Castiel’s head against his neck, and stroked at his jaw.  

“No!” Castiel whined, clutching at Dean’s arms, his waist.  “No, don’t go!  It doesn’t matter who, Dean, it doesn’t, don’t leave me.”  He thought he would freeze solid and shatter into a million pieces of he lost the warmth of Dean’s body.  He couldn’t suffer this without Dean.  He couldn’t.  It was too much.  Even for five minutes.  Even for one.    

“Ssshhh, Ok Cas, Ok.  I’m not going anywhere.  I’ll get them later.  I promise you that.  Even if it’s all of Heaven, I’ll get them.  For this.”  He swore it to Castiel and he swore it to himself.  There would be war, for this.  He would break down the gates of Heaven and bring fire to the sky, for this.  The clouds would bleed.  Wings would be burned into the earth.  For this.  Because Castiel was burning, and freezing, and there were tears in his crystal eyes.  

“I’ll get them.”  He might have been saying that to himself.  Castiel didn’t really hear him, anyway, didn’t hear anything after “I’m not going…”  Dean’s words faded into a comforting buzz.  Too hard to understand them, too complicated, when he was so cold, and so tired, and Dean’s body was so warm, pressed up against his, holding him close.  

“You’re so warm, Dean.  Don’t let go.  It’s so cold.”  And his traumatized frame wracked in a shiver.  

“I got you, Cas,” Dean whispered, and pressed his lips against Castiel’s temple, and held him tighter.    

Castiel melted into Dean, and soaked up his heat.  He might be able to get warm, he thought, like this.  He might be able to stop burning.  The scars on his back might heal.  He could be whole again.  He would be. With Dean.  He closed his eyes.    

When he opened them again, he was blind.

All the spectra of light he had always been able to see were gone.  Infrared, ultraviolet, gamma, he couldn’t see them anymore.  The world was so dim, so dull, and it ached, behind his eyes when he tried to force them to see.  It ached, and when he looked back at Dean, he couldn’t see his soul.  

He looked away and choked back a sob.  It hurt.  To look at Dean and not see his soul.  It was a new kind of hurt.  There were so many ways to hurt, he was learning.  Ways that he couldn’t have imagined.  How many more ways were there?  How many more would he have to suffer?  Would he have to suffer them all?  Was that what it meant, to Fall?  Why did they ever think that they could defeat Lucifer, if he had survived this?  This was why his brother was strong.  Not because he had defied their Father.  Because he had Fallen, and survived.  Would Castiel be as strong?  Or would he go mad, and join Lucifer in his cage?  Would Dean have to put him there?  Would Dean cry when he closed the door, or would his eyes be cold and hard?  Would Castiel suffer forever, laughing derangedly, as Dean’s cold eyes floated in front of him in the dark?

He wasn’t holding the sobs back, any more, and he realizes he is talking, broken phrases punctuating the croaking sobs.  “It’s gone.  I’m gone.  Gone.  All gone.  Dean.  He’s gone.  He’s gone, but his eyes are here.  His eyes are so cold.  It’s so cold.”    

“Cas, I’m here, I’m right here, look at me.”  Dean presses the knuckle of his right index finger under Cas’ chin, and tilts his face up until they are eye to eye, only an inch apart.  Cas’ tears are choking him.  “Breathe for me, baby.  You gotta breathe for me.  Can you do that?”  

Cas shakes his head, tears flying off his face.  “You’re gone, you’re gone, forever, and it’s so dark, and it hurts, and it’s so cold, everything’s so cold.”  

“I’m not gone, I promise.  But you gotta tell me what’s wrong, Cas.  Gotta tell me what to do.  Gotta let me help you.”

“I… I can’t… I can’t see you, Dean.  Your soul… I can’t see it anymore.”  His face is crumpled and wet.  

“Ssshhh.  I’ll tell you about it.  I’ll tell you how it looks, ok?  You remember, when you told me?  What it looks like?  I do.”  And he did.  No one had ever praised him like that, before.  No one ever.  No one besides Cas.  No one besides his angel.  “I won’t let you forget, I promise.  I’ll tell you, if you breathe for me.”

Dean is here.  Cas tries to think, tries to breathe, because Dean asked him to.  Dean is here.  Dean can help.  He always helps.  He always tries.  He always tries, for me.  One breath.  Then another.  His hands, clawed stiffly into Dean’s shirt, begin to relax.  He breathes, instead of sobbing.  He breathes, for Dean.  As long as he can, for Dean.    

“Good, good Cas.  So good for me,” Dean whispers, relieved.   “You told me…” He pauses and holds in a breath.  It is hard for him, to talk about himself like this.  But he can do it, for Castiel.  Only for Castiel.  “You told me looking at it was like looking at the sun on an autumn day.  You said ‘autumn’, who the fuck says ‘autumn’?  You said that, you said sun on an autumn day, looking at it through leaves shifting in the breeze.  Leaves the color of my eyes.”  His voice goes very quiet.  “You told me my eyes were beautiful, Cas.  Did you mean it?”  

“‘Of course I meant it, Dean.”  

“Can you still see them, now, if you look at me?”  

Castiel freezes, afraid to find out, afraid it will be different, now, with his cursed human eyes, almost blind.  

“Open your eyes for me, Cas.”

He obeys, slowly, and one degree at at time, he lifts his head to meet Dean’s gaze with his own.  His breath catches in his chest, and then he stops breathing entirely.  He is seeing Dean’s eyes for the first time.  Without cosmic radiation overlain on them, without the light of his soul leaking out from behind them, golden and blinding.  He is seeing them for the first time, and they have never been this beautiful.  They are green.  So green.  He has never seen green before.  And they are flecked with little specks of gold, a million of them, a pattern like Dean’s freckles but brighter, more complicated.  His lips part and he is lost in trying to see all the details in that pattern.  His left hand rises, of its own volition, and holds Dean’s face, gently, a thumb passing lightly over Dean’s cheekbone.  

“I can see them.  I can see them, Dean.”  His voice is full of awe.  This is what he had sounded like, when he sang Hosanna and looked on the face of his Father.  “I’ve never really seen them before.  They’re… This is what Life looked like, before the Creation.  Green and gold and infinite and infinitely complex.  This is what Life looked like, when my Father held it in his hand.”

Dean ducks his head, and blushes.  “They’re just eyes, Cas.”  

“No, they’re not,” Castiel replies, his voice serious and solemn, his right hand now rising up to take hold of the other side of Dean’s face, and caress.  “They’re not, Dean, they’re everything.”  His hands gently encourage Dean to look at him, again.  “I’m glad I Fell, if it means I got to see them.”  

Heaven must have heard him say this, somehow, and been displeased, because the next moment he doubles over and cries out in pain, hands wrapping around his stomach.

“Cas! Cas!  Talk to me, Cas, what’s wrong,” Dean barks, while Cas writhes against him.  

“I don’t know Dean, I don’t know, it just hurts.  It hurts.  They’re tearing me up inside.”  Castiel cries.  “They hate me.  They hate me and they want to hurt me.  They don’t want me to have peace, they want me to hurt, forever.  They don’t like it, when I look at you.”  

The First Blade appears in Dean’s hand, unbidden, and his eyes turn black.  “I’m going to get them, Cas.  I’m going to get them all.  And they’re not going to hurt you, ever again.”  He flexes his hand, and sends the Blade away.  “I should’ve done it, a long time ago.  I should have killed every angel that got in my way, after the first time they hurt you.  I should have hunted them like demons, I should have hunted them twice as hard.  I should have hunted them until there weren’t any left.  I’m sorry.  I let you down, and now they’re hurting you again.  But they won’t hurt you a third time, Cas.  Heaven will be empty, before they hurt you again.”

“It hurts, Dean, so much.”  It did.  He had known it would hurt, but knowing and feeling are very different, and it hurt.  His wings were gone.  He was blind.  He couldn’t feel his Father’s love.

“I know.  I know, baby.  Tell me what to do.”

“Just… just don’t go.  Don’t go, please, Dean, it hurts.”  He was burning.  He was freezing.  He was Falling.  But now… now he knew what Dean’s eyes looked like.  He knew, and he clenched his jaw and closed his eyes, and imagined green flecked with gold.  He imagined himself sinking into that color, he imagined the flecks of gold spinning around him like stars.  He imagined flying again, light and free, through a whole universe made only of that exact shade of green.  He imagined it until all he could feel was green, and he slept, for the first time since his Fall.

*****

_\---Present---_

Castiel goes to see Sam.  He wears a shirt this time, because Dean insisted--”just wear the damn shirt, Cas”-- though he doesn't see the point, because the shirt covers some of the marks on his body, but his tattoo still shows, silver and shining with witchlight on his neck, and Sam objected especially to that.

He brings Sam a book.  A sign of Dean's good faith, that Dean does truly mean to break the stalemate that has grown rigid around them since Dean embraced the Mark.  His offering is a journal that Cain wrote, spanning ten years in Hell bearing the Mark.  It is the first of ten volumes.  

“Cas, this, this is incredible.  This is more information on the Mark all in one place than I’ve been able to find all year.”

“There are 9 more volumes.  You can have them all, if you want.  Dean told me, to give you anything you want, from the library.”

“What do you have on fallen angels?”

Castiel narrows his eyes, and purposefully misunderstands.  “The Morningstar kept a journal also, after the Fall.  I will bring it to you if you ask for it but you may find it…difficult, given your history with Lucifer.”

Sam's gaze is hard, his face a stone, when he replies.  “That's not what I meant, Cas.  You know that's not what I meant.  I want to help--”

Castiel has heard this before and he does not want to hear it again.  Like Dean, he is frustrated by the dance he is locked in with Sam.  He interrupts.  “Do you know what I went through to Fall, Sam?” Sam opens his mouth to reply, but Castiel does not wait for him.  “You can't imagine.  The suffering.”  Again Sam inhales sharply, again Castiel doesn't wait.  “I know what you suffered in the Cage.  I know what Dean suffered in the Pit.  You can't imagine what it feels like to Fall.  You are mortal, your suffering, no matter how acute, no matter how profound, is finite.  You suffered on one plane of existence, I suffered on all of them.  You suffered for years, I suffered forever.  They took my wings, Sam.  They took them, and they took from every moment of my entire existence, which extends through all of time.   _You can't imagine_.  To make me an angel again, after I suffered that to Fall…  It wouldn't be helping me, Sam, it would make that suffering meaningless.  It would be cruel.”

Sam's eyes are wide when he replies, in sympathy, or alarm, or both. “Do you really mean that, Cas?”  He sits down, on the rock ledge of his cell, so he can look up at Cas instead of down at him.

“I don't know how many other ways I can tell you this Sam.  If you find a way to restore my halo-- which you will have to kill Dean to do, because he wears it now and he will not give it up, to you or anyone else--” it is clear from Sam's face that this is new information to him, and that he would like to discuss it in every detail and every ramification, but Cas does not want to get sidetracked.  So he continues “But if you do find a way, Sam, I will cast it down, again.  And I will choose to suffer the sundering again, even now knowing what it feels like, because I made a promise to your brother, _Anything_ , and I will not break it ever again, at any cost.  If you raise me up, I will Fall again.  And I will suffer for it.  But it won't be the angels that I will hold responsible for that suffering, Sam, if it comes to that.  It will be you.”

“Cas, you and Dean,” Sam is frustrated too, by this dance, he runs a hand anxiously through his hair, “you can be together on earth, human and angel.  If I restore you.  If I cure him.”

“At what cost will you cure him, Sam?  Will it cost you your soul?  Will it take all the energy of the sun?  Will you become God, like I did?  And do you think the Host will allow me back down on Earth, untouched, in peace, though I am unclean in their eyes, a betrayer?  Do you think they will leave Dean alone, and forget that he hunted them?  He slew Raphael, Sam, for me, and gave me his halo to keep.  The angels will not forgive that.  Ever.  He will be in constant, mortal, danger, forever, and I will not be there to protect him, they will keep me from him, and when they get him, he will be right back here in Hell, but he will be back on a rack, instead of on a throne.”

Sam thinks he sees an opening now, and he leans forward, eager, tucking his hair back behind his ears.  “We've been on the run before, Cas, the bunker--”

“Dean hates being on the run,” Sam opens his mouth to disagree but Castiel is not interested in Sam's protestations.  “He hates it Sam, you know it.  He does not admit it, because he adheres loyally to the exaggerated machismo your father impressed on him, toxic though it may be, and the thinks that ‘whining is for whiners’ “ (air quotes, eye roll), “but he hates it.  He wants to have a home.  He wants to be safe.  He wants to take care of his family.  Let him have that, Sam.  Let us.  You could be safe here, too, with us.  Dean would make sure of it.”

“Safe here.  In Hell.”  Sam huffs, and crosses his arms.  Before Castiel can reply, defensively, and spin them in to another turn of the same dance, Sam raises his hands placatingly.  “I'll think about it, Cas.  I don't want you to suffer.  I don't want Dean to have to be on the run forever.  It's just… It's just that I'm having a hard time believing this is the best way.  You get that, right?”

“I do Sam, I do.  But I'm going to show you.  Read Cain’s journal.  Think about what you want me to bring you next. Think about what it would take, to convince you.  Think about what it would take, really think, and I promise, I'll try to get Dean to agree to whatever it is.  So we can move forward, and end this stalemate.  So the part of Dean that worries about you can be calm, again.”

“Ok, Cas.  I'll try.”

“Good, Sam.  I'll come visit you again soon.”

“Bye, Cas,” Sam says, though he is already turning to open Cain’s journal, and he doesn't notice that Castiel is already gone.

*****

_\---Past---_

When Castiel woke again, world fading in to his awareness through a cloud of green,  it hurt a little less.  Just a little bit.  He was still freezing.  His blood still felt like poison.  His shoulders were still aching and raw, where his wings had been sliced away.  He was exhausted, though he had been sleeping, from the trauma.  But it hurt a little less.  He was laid out on his stomach, sweat-damp sheets twisted around his legs.  Dean’s hand rested heavy and warm in the center of his back.  Dean.  Warm.  He began to drift back to sleep.  

“Cas.  How do you feel?”  Dean sounded… anxious.  

“So tired, Dean.  It hurts.”  Dean’s face darkened.  “But not as much.  It’s a little better,”  anything, to take that look off Dean’s face.  “I’m thirsty.  Water?”   

“Can you sit up?”  He could, he found.  He sat up against the headboard, gingerly positioning himself so as to not put pressure on the scars of his wings.  Dean reached for a glass of ice water on the nightstand then, but instead of handing it to Castiel, he pressed it directly to Castiel’s cracked lips, and waited for them to open.  When they did, carefully, he trickled a stream of cool water into Castiel’s dry mouth.  Giving Castiel life.  Again.  Always.  Castiel drank it down eagerly, head tilted back and Adam’s apple bobbing heavily.  

“Not too much,” Dean said, and took the glass away.  Castiel’s eyes followed it, greedily, and that is how they alighted on the gold bracelet resting on Dean’s nightstand.  Had Dean taken off his halo?  His eyes flicked to Dean’s wrist-- no, still there.  He looked more closely at the one on the nightstand.  It did not say _Castiel_ .  It said _Hester_ .   _Oh_ , he thought, as the water settled in his stomach and his eyes grew too heavy to hold open.   _That’s why I feel better._  He laced his fingers through Dean’s as he slumped against Dean’s shoulder.  “A little better, Dean,” he slurred numbly, before sleep took him again, and everything was black.  

The next time he woke up, he hurt even less, and there was another bracelet on Dean’s nightstand.  This one said _Naomi_.  His blood beat tranquilly through his veins.  It wasn’t fire.  It wasn’t poison.  It was just blood.  “It’s just blood,” he said sleepily, before his eyes were really open.  “Thank you.”

“‘Welcome, Cas.”  Dean’s voice was very soft for a demon who was covered in the blood of the Chosen.

The pile on Dean’s nightstand got a lot bigger.   Bartholomew.  Zachariah.  Ion.  Uriel.  Gadreel.  Dean thinned the ranks of Heaven one by one, deadly, determined, single-minded, striking like a snake while Castiel slept, vicious and deadly, and then returning to the safety of Hell.  

Raphael took longer than Dean thought it would.  Archangelic sonofabitch.  It wasn’t hard for Dean to get him, but it wasn’t easy, either.  He was fast.  He was strong.  Not as fast as Dean, though.  Not as strong.  Not as determined, not by half.  But Dean miscalculated, and Castiel was awake when he returned.  He was awake, and he was staring vacantly at Dean’s side of the bed, shivering.  He looked small, and cold.  His arms were wrapped around himself.  His arms were wrapped around himself because Dean’s arms weren’t there.  Hadn’t been there when he woke up.  Had Castiel been scared?  Had he been hurting, alone, while Dean was out bloodying himself on the chosen of Heaven?  Had he cried out for Dean, and been unanswered?  Had he been imagining the dark place, again, the dark place that made him cry and babble that Dean was gone but his eyes were there and they were cold, so cold?        

Dean dropped Raphael onto the top of the pile, with a heavy clunk.

“You’re back,” Cas said quietly, still shivering.  He looked up at Dean, and held out his arms.  “Stay.”        

Dean had tipped his head down low, to avoid Castiel’s gaze.  “‘Course, Cas.  Always with you.”  And he was true, of course he was, Dean Winchester was always true.  He killed until the bright halls of Heaven ran red, but Castiel did not wake up alone again.  He woke to Dean’s arms wrapped around him, or Dean’s breath on the back of his neck.  He woke to Dean’s hand resting on his heart or Dean’s hands holding both of his own.  He woke to Dean stroking his hair or kissing the tender scars of his wings.  But he did not wake up in an empty bed.  He did not wake up cold, any more.

He did not wake up alone, but that didn’t mean the collection of halos was finished.  It grew.  Every time he woke, it grew.   

Heaven noticed Dean’s campaign.  The angels were afraid.  They stopped their torment of Castiel completely, thinking this would appease Dean, but it did not.  He could not be appeased.  Still, he came, and he slayed them.

Hell noticed the will of the Master.  The demons were frenzied in the Pit, pounding the butts of their spears and licking pointed teeth and screeching Dean’s name as they flung themselves against the agents of Heaven.

Crowley noticed the turn of the tides between Heaven and Hell.  “It’s bad for business,” he said, glancing at his fingernails, when he appeared with no overture in Dean and Castiel’s room in the Pit.  He continued, after taking in the figures before him and rolling his eyes, “You two are even more disgusting now than you were before you were an item.  I didn’t think it was possible.  It’s so rare that I’m wrong.”

This is what Crowley saw:  Dean with Castiel cradled to his chest, whispering, “I need you,” “Need you to get strong, for me, angel,” between pressing kisses to Castiel’s cheek, and temple, while Castiel blushed, and trembled with half-lidded eyes, and threaded his fingers sickly through the hair at Dean’s nape.

“‘The fuck, Crowley!  Who let you in here.”

Crowley raised his eyebrows.  “King, remember?  I let myself in.”

“Next time, call first.”  Castiel whined weakly then, at the stiffness in Dean’s posture, the anger in his voice, the lack of his soft lips.  Dean pulled him closer and shielded his head with the bulk of his arm, as if to keep him even from Crowley’s view.  “Ssshhhhh, baby,” he whispered, head canted close towards Castiel’s ear. “I’ll deal with the King of Assholes.”  Castiel quieted and curled himself closer still.  

Crowley ignored this.  “Been calling.  You haven’t been answering.  I suppose now I see why.”

“What do you WANT Crowley?”

“Right to business then.  Works for me, the sooner started the sooner I can make my exit from the Tunnel of Love.  I want you to dial back your Heavenly Duck Hunt.”  

Dean scoffed.  “The King of Hell.  Standing here, telling me to stop killing angels?  I don’t buy it.  What’s in it for you?”

“You have no _subtlety_ , squirrel.  I guess it’s almost comforting how some things never change.”  He turned and ran a finger along the top ledge of the fireplace facing Dean and Castiel’s bed, and then grimaced at whatever he found there.  “The eye of Heaven is upon us, now.  They are shaking in their sensible shoes, and they are terrified of every creature that slips the Gates, because they think it’s you coming for them.  They think Hell’s policy has become single-minded, and it is making them single-minded.  I can’t get anything done, I have no room to operate, because everyone that’s not immortal gets offed the second they step upstairs.  You need to cut. It. Out.”  

“Sorry.  Not happening,” Dean replied, and turned his attention away from Crowley, back to pressing kisses to Castiel’s temple, the rise of his shoulder, Castiel sighing gently at every touch.

“Oh, I’m sorry, did that sound like a request?  I was not asking, squirrel.  I’m the bloody King, my mandate is the only thing keeping you from being a demon kebob, and I am telling you to knock it off with the one-demon crusade.”  

“Not.  Happening.”  Dean’s hands stilled, and his voice grew cold and hard.  His right hand twitched, as though expecting the First Blade.  Castiel whined again, in his arms.  His eyes flicked black.  Crowley’s flicked red, in response.  

“You are putting all of Hell at risk.  You are inviting open war with Heaven for the first time since the Creation.  You are doing this to service your cringeworthy savior complex and to get into Feathers’ pants when-- newsflash, he’s in to you already.  You.  Will.  Stop.”  

“They hurt Cas,” Dean shouts, his calm completely broken.  “No one gets a pass for that.  Not any more.  Not the angels, not you, not GOD if he decides to show his dick face.  Not--”

“Did you hear what I said about people who are not immortal?” Crowley yelled back, not waiting for Dean to finish.  “You know who is not immortal anymore?”  He looked significantly at Castiel.  “How do you think it’s going to go for Feathers if he exits the loving embrace of Hell?  Or do you want him to stay down here forever?  Is that what you want for him Dean, really?  Are you actually that stupid?”

“ _Cas_ doesn’t have anything to worry about,” Dean replies, quieter now.  “Because anyone that comes at him is going to be very dead, very fast.  Very fast if they’re lucky.”      

“Dean,” Cas says, his first word since Crowley arrived.  

“No one’s gonna touch you, Cas.”

“I don’t want you to have to--”

“We’ve been over this.  I told you.   _Anything_.”  

“We have been over this.  I told you.  I don’t want you to have to.  You don’t have to do this for me.  Just stop.  Forget them.”  He takes Dean’s face in both hands.  “They're not hurting me anymore.  They’re not worth it.”  His face breaks a little bit.  “Hate it when you’re gone.  Even when I’m asleep.  It’s so cold, when you’re gone.”      

Crowley makes a disgusted noise, and butts back in.  “My black heart warms.  If you won’t listen to me, listen to your boyfriend.   _Just stop.  Forget them_ ,” he mocks.

“You can tell when I’m gone?”  Dean asks Castiel, not looking at Crowley, not even acknowledging that he is there, anymore.  

Cas nods soberly.  “It’s so cold, “ he repeats, mouth parting and drifting towards Dean’s, where his eyes also linger.  “Cold in my dreams.” he breathes onto Dean’s mouth.

“Don’t want you to be cold,” Dean murmurs, his lips brushing against Castiel’s as he forms the words.  “Always gonna keep you warm, Cas.”  And he encircles Castiel with his arms, covering as much of Cas’ feverish skin with his body as possible.  “So warm, here with me.”  

“I’m sorry, is that a ‘Yes, King?’ I hear, then,” Crowley asks, hand to his ear, annoyed at being ignored.  “‘Yes King, I’ll stay here and play Nurse Nancy with my invalid boyfriend instead of going out and making Angel Chow?”      

“For Cas.  Not for you,” Dean replies, without taking his eyes off of Castiel.    

Crowley raises his hands, palms forward, in front of him.  “I don’t care why.  Just end it.”  And then he disappears as suddenly as he had arrived.

Castiel's eyes haven't wandered from Dean's lips, and his own are parted by shallow breaths.  “Keep me warm?” He asks, voice soft and quiet, eyes wide and dark.  

“Want to,” Dean whispers in reply, and gently lays them on their sides.  He gathers Cas in close to him, heat burning off his bare, feverish, chest, and wraps the bed’s blankets up around them carefully, to warm them and hold in the heat of their flushed bodies.  Cas’ skin is so hot, against his own.  He's been running hot, in the final fever of the last of his dying grace burning itself from his body.  Dean thinks he might be seared by it.  Hopes he will be.  

“Dean,” Cas cries, and clutches weakly at Dean's chest.  “Please.”

Dean brushes a feathered, wild curl back from Cas’ forehead, feeling the heat there.  His fingers stray, his thumb to Cas’ cheekbone, the rest to comb in to the soft hair at his temple.  He strokes, for a while, his eyes fast to Castiel's.  Staring in to them like always, like he can find there the entire universe, and escape from its blackness on the other side.  His whole universe, in Castiel's eyes.  Everything in his life that is soft, and bright, and gleaming, there.  They draw Dean in, with their gravity.  His mouth drifts to Castiel's, slow, but certain, like the tide.  “Cas,” he breathes into Castiel's mouth, just before their lips meet.

“Dean,” Cas says again, though it is muffled by the careful press of Dean’s mouth against his own.  He falls forward against Dean, as though even holding himself upright on his side is too hard for him.  It might be.  He is so weak now, after facing down the might of Heaven.  He rests his hand against Dean’s bicep, long fingers resting in the contour of muscle there.  His hand is heavy, and warm.  And it is trembling.

Dean pulls his lips back, though Castiel chases them.  “Cas, you're shaking.”

“I need you, Dean,  I just… I need you.”  He does.  His body is hollowed out and empty, the last of his grace burning away inside him.  His heart is erratic and sore and when he looks at Dean, it feels like he is falling.  When he even thinks of him.  A fall that doesn’t end.  He needs.  “Please.”  His voice is wrecked and desperate.  That is what he is, wrecked and desperate and every part of him, his hands, his body, his heart, the tattered remains of his grace, are all reaching out to Dean, hoping, praying, that Dean will catch him so he doesn’t have to fall anymore.  

“Are you sure, Cas?”  Dean asks, holding back.  “Sure you're strong enough?  Maybe you should rest awhile.  I'll stay, with you, while you rest, promise.”

Castiel wraps his fingers around Dean's arm, holding on now, though his grip is weak.  “Please,” he says again, and his eyes are so wide.  

Dean kisses him.  Careful, gentle.  Just lips to lips, dry and soft and so sweet.  His hands find Castiel's face. “Ok, Cas, ok.”  Little kisses, light and warm, starting short and getting longer, until Dean's lips are lingering on Castiel's, because he is entranced and he has to worship Castiel’s mouth with his own.  He tastes each of Castiel’s lips, just touches them with his tongue.  He scrapes his lips against Castiel’s stubble, and shivers at the scratch.  “You feel so good,” Dean confesses, voice low.  Cas’ lips are working a spell on him, he is lightheaded, dizzy, floating away.  And Castiel is so needy, clinging to him, desperate to be close, clutching at his arms, his neck, and it’s tearing Dean apart inside.  His angel is hurt and weak and clinging to him and it is breaking his heart.  He wants to crawl inside, and fix it.  He wants to take care of Castiel until he isn’t hurt anymore, until he is strong again and his eyes flash when he stands against the unfaithful.  

“Let me,” he whispers, desperate too.   _Let me take care of you.  Let me hold you close.  Let me inside._  Each of these.  All of them.  He wants to open Castiel, so his tongue can be inside and find more sweetness there.  He coaxes at Castiel’s jaw with his thumb, and Cas opens, he opens so beautifully for Dean, and moans his name.  

Dean tastes.  This is Castiel, his Castiel, his angel.  Castiel, who hasn’t eaten for days as he’s thrashed through the pain of his Fall, but still tastes so sweet.  Sweet for Dean.  Dean wants to live in his mouth, in the sweetness, in the heat.  His tongue slides deeper, trying to taste more, trying to get closer, trying to get further inside.  Castiel’s fingers curl up against Dean’s neck and his knee slips between Dean’s thighs.  Pressed in close, like this, Dean can feel the empty space inside Castiel, the empty hollow where his grace used to be.  He can feel the jagged press of the scars, scars over softness.  He wants to fill that space up.  With himself, with his tongue, and his lips, with the sweet invincible song of power that the Mark sang when he took Raphael.  His fingers dig in to Castiel’s jaw and he presses in deeper, closer. Castiel’s lips are open so wide, and they bruise against Dean’s face as Dean works his way inside.  Castiel whimpers at the pinch and Dean pulls back immediately, alarmed, but Castiel’s fingers cling to his neck.  “Don’t stop,” he whispers, and it sounds like he might die if Dean doesn’t obey, and Dean cannot deny him.  Instead he nibbles gently at Castiel’s lips, oversensitive now, and Castiel shivers against him with every scrape of teeth, shaking and drugged and breathing out soft little cries with every brush of Dean’s lips against his own swollen, bruised ones.  And Dean wants more, to take more, to make a claim on Castiel’s mouth that can never be revoked, so he can have it forever, so he can keep it between his teeth until Castiel breaks under the sensation. “Your mouth is so perfect for me, angel,” he whispers, and it is, it is.  

“Talk to me Dean, tell me.  Tell me so I’ll know.  So I’ll know when it’s cold.  Tell me so I can be warm again.”  

Dean wraps an arm over Castiel's side and an arm under his waist so he can hold him, and stares into Castiel’s glassy eyes, steady and intense, when he says:  “Love your mouth, Cas.  How it's soft and sweet on mine.  How it tastes.  How it looks when it's swollen and raw because I've been kissing you.  How it opens up, just for me.  How it feels when you kiss me back. ‘S perfect.”  He lets his gaze travel back to Castiel’s lips and parts his own again, wetting them with a deliberate glide of his tongue.  

“Just for you,” Castiel whispers.  “It’s always been you.”  

“I know, Cas.  Me too.”  He presses a hand between them, so he can find Castiel's heart, and holds it there.  “Always will be.”  

“Promise me, Dean.  Promise me ‘always.’  It’s hurt so much, I’ve been so afraid…I’ve lost you so many times.  If I lose you, now…”  His voice breaks as he starts to shake again.  

“Hey, Cas, Cas, no, Hey.  Hey, look at me.”  This is wrong.  This is all wrong.  He’s not making it better.  Cas isn’t warm against him.  Cas is shaking and being torn apart on his jagged scars.

“I promise you.  Always.” The words are immediate, but they’re not enough, they’re not enough, his words have never been enough to keep Castiel with him and they’re not enough now to even stop Castiel from trembling.  Castiel is afraid that he will lose Dean again, and he is right to be afraid, because they have been torn apart so many times and Dean has never done enough to stop it.  

He decides.  Never again.  He is powerful now.  He can promise Castiel ‘ _Anything, Always_ ’, and he can mean it, he can make it real, he can make it so that the universe will tear itself apart before it will let Dean and Castiel be torn apart again.  He can and he will.  Before Castiel knows what is happening, Dean is off the bed and striding to the fireplace.  The First Blade is in his right hand, and he uses it to cut deeply into the palm of his left.  As the blood wells up, he promises again.  “Always,” and then he lets the blood drip into the fire.

“Dean!” Castiel gasps, “You can’t--” and then cuts off in mute shock as Dean rubs some of the blood into Castiel's name where it is etched in the golden sheen of his halo--still locked around his wrist, as it has been since the moment Castiel Fell-- where it is soaked up greedily.  “Always,” he promises again.  He looks back at Cas’ stricken face.  He squeezes his left hand into a fist, and a last few drops of blood hiss and smoke darkly in the fire before his hand heals itself.  

“Dean, the blood magic…”

“Always,” Dean says, walking back until he reaches the bed, then climbing onto it on his knees and advancing towards Castiel.

Castiel looks away.  “If you decide you don’t--” _want me_ , he thinks, but he can’t even say it.  “--If you… change your mind, now, your blood, the Mark, my halo, it could—”  He is interrupted when Dean reaches his body, and continues to advance on his knees until he is straddling Castiel’s hips.

“Always,”  Dean says, as he leans down gracefully to press kisses to Castiel’s neck, the top of his shoulder, his heart, his hands sliding up against Castiel’s bare chest.  “I’m always gonna be here to keep you warm, Cas,” and he latches his mouth onto the pulse point in Cas’ neck, sucking wetly.  

“Dean,” Castiel exhales, and his eyes roll up in his head as the pressure increases on his neck.  He can barely think with Dean’s lips on his throat but he has to, he has to, because the pact Dean has just made… he wonders if Dean even understands it.  Castiel understands.  He can even see it, the universe flexing between them and around them, reshaping itself around this promise that is so powerful reality has to bend to it or crack like frozen glass.  There is no return, from this.  This is forever.  He is so weak, and broken, and he can’t believe that Dean could have made this promise to him, Fallen, pathetic, if he really understood.  If he understood it was forever.         

“Want you forever, angel.”  

Castiel gasps in shock; shock that maybe Dean does understand, that he meant it.   _That he meant it._  It’s too much.  His mind breaks into sharp, jagged pieces.  One is the feel of Dean’s mouth on his throat.  One is the feeling of air moving over his bruised lips.  One is the memory of a sound, Dean’s voice, saying “Always,” as his blood swelled wet and red from his palm.  One is the movement of the earth he felt when he took off his halo and the world caved in around him.  One piece, one tiny piece, edges cruel as knives, holds all the pain of his Fall.  That piece is floating away, floating away, and as it shrinks away a different piece drifts towards him, a piece he almost doesn’t even recognize, until it is very close.  A memory of being warm.  At night, on a case, outside, by a fire.  Dean’s arm around him.  Dean sleepy and drunk and wrapped around him, whispering, _Need you, Cas_ , in his ear.  And being warm.  Beside that fragment a crystal clear shard that floats near too, green.  The green of Dean’s eyes, as he has only now been able to see them, the green that started to save him from his Fall.  He stares at it.  Other pieces start to coalesce back around it, they are carried on black wings that flicker silver lightning.  What it felt like to fly.  What it felt like to hold his sword in his hand, and be strong and sure.  Sitting in the Impala.  Drinking coffee.  Smiling at Dean, Dean letting himself smile back.  He feels sensation in his fingertips and he realizes how long they have been numb.  He feels blood begin to rise to his chest, his cheeks, and realizes how long he has been pale, and wasted away.  He hears a voice in his ears and it is rough and low and perfect and he realizes it has been talking to him, though he broke apart and came back together again it never stopped.  

“…Always wanted you.  Was so stupid, so stupid.  Not gonna be stupid anymore.”  And Dean’s mouth returns to Castiel’s throat, moving harder there, more desperate.  

Castiel wants.  He wants Dean to sink in his teeth, and mark him, he wants to writhe underneath as Dean makes his claim on Castiel’s body tangible. Castiel whines highly, and his fingernails dig in to Dean’s back.  “You like that, angel?”  Dean’s mouth pauses, breath hot on the flushed skin.  

“Wanna be yours Dean.  Am yours.  Forever.”  Dean puts his mouth back over that same spot, that same, raw, throbbing spot, and presses down sharp teeth, wet tongue.  He sucks.  Castiel rolls underneath him, and moans.  “More, Dean, harder, please, I need to feel you.”  Dean’s hands grip at Castiel’s biceps, holding him in place, hard and solid and tight.  Dean’s teeth break the skin.  And when Castiel starts to bleed, he gasps out, “ _Always_.”          

 


	4. It's a Long Way Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time and light and the world spiral away from them, as they move against each other. What they are experiencing is not only sex, it is not only love, it is forever. It is a promise. It is why the universe was created. It is why Castiel watched the earth for a million years. It is why Dean Winchester came back from the dead, again and again. Their minds and bodies are wrecked, and flayed, against each other and still Castiel screams, “Closer,” and comes so hard he loses consciousness, and Dean comes too, in the same moment, screaming Castiel’s name. A crack splits in the stone floor of their room, and all the lights go out. 
> 
> It is over. Castiel is Fallen.

_ Take all my tears _  
_ Covet my eyes _  
_ Take what you need to make you love me _  
_ Be mine. _

\--Be Mine, The Heavy 

_\---Past---_

_Dean’s teeth break the skin.  And when Castiel starts to bleed, he gasps out, “Always.”_

Dean groans when he hears his promise echoed on Castiel’s lips, in Castiel’s rough whisper.  It takes hold of him, and he surrenders; he does not fight it, he does not want to.  He wonders if this is what Castiel felt, when his blood dripped in the fire.  If he felt like a phantom hand gripped him and pulled him inexorably, impossibly, towards Dean.  He wonders if maybe Castiel always felt that way. His hips roll forward against Castiel, and it feels so good, like he is dirty and bloody and laying down finally to rest.

“Closer,” Castiel pleads, in a hot whisper.   _Closer_ .  Dean takes Castiel by the arms and lifts him up against the headboard, so there is no give when he presses their chests together.  He crawls into Castiel’s lap, hips so far up Castiel’s body that his weight tips forward, pressing them together even harder.  Castiel’s hand finds the back of his head and threads deeply into his hair, his lips hot and rough as they kiss.  “Closer”, Castiel still demands, and Dean kisses him like he is trying to force their bodies to occupy the same space.  Castiel’s nails rake into the skin of his face as he claws at Dean’s jaw like he’s trying to break it against his own, and exhales in to his mouth:   _Closer_.

They are still wearing clothes and it is getting in the way, it is putting space between them, too much space, and it is stifling their burning skin.  But when Dean breaks away to try to take his shirt off, Castiel’s hands are on his neck like a vise, pulling him back in to crash against his mouth again.  “Magic,” he growls, and Dean knows what he means, he is the recipient of an ancient and malevolent power that makes him immortal and makes the angels flee when they see his shadow, and he uses it to annihilate every atom of the clothing they are wearing.  

And then his skin, his skin, it is on fire against Castiel.  And still, still, Castiel begs him, “Closer, Dean.  Inside me.  I want to feel you inside.  Please.  Closer.”  Dean can’t deny him this, can’t deny him anything, wouldn’t.  He starts to kiss down Castiel’s chest, because he wants to taste, he wants to open him with his tongue and make it sweet, but Castiel’s hands stop him, and he looks up into eyes that are wide, and blue, and leaking.  “Will you go slow for me, Dean?” Castiel asks.  “Make it last, for me?”

And Cas said all that stuff about Dean’s eyes; about how they were like Life before the Creation, about how they looked like God could be holding them in the palm of his hand, about how they were everything.  But has Cas looked in the mirror?  Has he seen that his eyes are the color of storm-swept waves, crashing into Dean, crashing into the walls he has built around his heart and breaking them down, relentlessly?  Has he seen his eyes flash like lightning, fierce and pure, like an act of God?  Does he know that Dean dreams about them?  Always has?  Dean wants to tell him, but there is so much, just so much to say, and the words all bunch and smash against each other, trying to get out of his throat.      

“Angel,” he whispers, one word breaking out of the press, and kisses at Castiel’s abdomen, so softly.

“Not any more,” Castiel whispers back, looking away.

“Always, Cas.  Always, to me.  You’re the one who gripped me tight, aren’t you?  You’re the one that saved me.”  And he rises to kiss his angel, gentle and slow.  Castiel’s lips are like petals, his mouth a secret filled with honey, and Dean dips in to it again and again until his mind is buzzing from the sweetness.  Castiel kisses him back, and his mouth is tentative and pliant and so sweet beneath Dean’s.  He kisses Dean like he is dipping his toe into blessed waters.  Like kissing is sacred and Dean is its horned God, powerful and too beautiful to bear.  Dean’s wings unfurl around them and cocoon them in a velvet dark, he _is_ powerful, he _is_ godlike, and it is just them, Dean and Castiel, in the whole of the universe.  Dean has made it so.  “Angel,” he whispers, between kisses.  “Need you,” “Need you so much.”    

Cas stretches out his arms, so his hands can comb through the wall of soft feathers surrounding him.  It feels so good when Cas touches him like that, careful and longing; it makes his heart beg him to find Castiel with his hands and bring him close and never let him go.  Never.  Dean’s hips roll against Cas again, skin to skin.  “Closer,” Cas whispers, as Dean moans into his neck.  

There is only one way to be closer, now, and that is for Dean to be inside, and that is where his mouth goes, his tongue, his hands, until Cas is slick and open, leaking and spread wide. Castiel moans for him, moans so sweet, the first time Dean brushes up against him with his tongue.

The first time anyone has.  “Tell me if I hurt you,” Dean asks, his voice so quiet.   “Never want to hurt you, Cas.  Promise me.”  He's glad it's him.  The first time.  Glad no one else has given Castiel this, glad no one has been allowed to.  It should be him.  Always him, for Cas.  His Cas.

“Closer,” is what Cas says, trembling, and when Dean enters him, his hands fist in Dean’s wings and he cries out in a high whine.  

Dean freezes.  “Am I hurting you?  Tell me Cas, talk to me.”  

Castiel takes a moment, hands rigid in Dean’s wings, to breathe, and swallow, and then he opens those crystal eyes, those perfect eyes, and they find Dean’s and his voice is cracked and broken when he says, “Go slow, Dean.  Please.  Go slow for me.”

Dean hangs his head and he pants with the effort of it, with how much he wants, with how badly he needs.  And he moves, barely he moves, slow and intense, arms shaking where they carry his weight on the headboard, his knuckles white from his grip.  It’s Cas around him, Castiel.  The waves that crash against him, the storm that rages around his heart, the eyes he sees in the only good dreams he ever has, has ever had.  He wants to break inside him, to give in to his wild need.  But Cas.  Cas asked him to go slow.  The headboard snaps in his hands.  He folds his wings in, and down, so that they aren’t cocooning around Castiel any longer, but covering him, touching him everywhere, stroking him and claiming him, every inch, no longer naked, now cloaked in Dean, in his touch, in his power.  

Castiel is drowning in it, he can hardly breathe.  Dean is inside him, Dean is all around him.  Dean is pressed against him and loving him with his hands, his mouth, his body, and he is so careful, so so careful. He is full of Dean, he is breathing Dean, Dean’s scent heavy on the feathers that are wrapping him, that sweep everywhere on his skin and make it feel like he doesn’t have a skin at all, only his heart and his blood, pounding in his veins, and soft, warm, feathers covering him instead of a skin of his own.  “Closer,” he whispers, though he’s not sure how that is possible, or if it is, but it’s all he can think, that he wants more of Dean, that it could never be enough.

Dean whines in frustration and looks up at Cas and their eyes meet and…

Hell quakes.  Dean thinks it must be in his head, that it must only feel like the earth is shaking beneath him, but then he hears a clinking sound as the angels’ halos shift where they are piled on his nightstand.

“Dean,” Castiel moans, and Dean rolls his hips forward, pressing himself deeper inside.  Castiel inhales sharply, his breath carrying a high cry, and the earth shakes again.  This time, the magnitude of the quake is heavier; stones crush and rumble against each other and thunder in the depths.  The wooden slats of the bed crack sharply and the mattress drops six inches. Castiel's fingers sink in to Dean's shoulder blades, holding him through the sudden movement.

“Cas, Cas, please,” Dean pleads, grasping at Castiel's face desperately as the dust settles, holding himself still, panting from the effort.  His eyes are wet and so are Cas’, from the intensity of this, the need crackling in the air, heavy enough to shift the foundation of the earth.

_“Closer,”_ Castiel cries, and Dean finally, finally, starts to move in rhythm.  His elbows rest on Castiel's shoulders, he holds Castiel's face tight by the jaw, he breathes into Castiel's mouth and stares into his eyes and he moves.  Slow, and deep, and sweet, he moves, his cock hard and throbbing, Cas’ name formed on reverent lips.  

“Cas, Cas,” he says it over and over, his hands sliding up into Castiel's wild hair to frame his face.  “Cas.”  He wants to kiss Castiel, take his pink lips between his teeth and bite them red, and raw.  He wants to put his mouth to the place on Castiel's neck where his pulse beats, heavy and strong; he wants to put them on Castiel's Adam’s apple and suck wetly there.  He wants to feel Castiel's stubble against his cheek, his jaw, his chest.  He wants, he wants.  There is so much he wants, but he cannot look away from Castiel's eyes; it is like the phantom hand that gripped them when they swore to each other, _Always,_ is holding his head fast.   

“Dean,” Castiel says his name, too, and tears are leaking out of his eyes, streaming down his face.  “Is it always like this?”  

“No, Cas, God no, it's _never_ like this.”  Dean is quick to answer him, because he hates that Cas might think that Dean had given this away cheaply, shared this with so many others, that what he and Cas are sharing now isn't as different from any of that as a snowflake from a snowstorm.  “It's never been like this, for me,” and a tear rolls from his eye, too, and when he moves again, Castiel cries out, from the joy of it.

Cas’ _eyes,_ his eyes, Dean can't look away from them.  They are so bright, they _shine_ , through his tears, like they are lit from within.  “Baby, your eyes,” he says, and brushes Castiel's hair back from his forehead.  “They're shining for me.”

It’s the last of Castiel’s grace, Castiel can feel it, the last fumes of it are on fire, evanescing in a sparking heat, Dean has lit them.  It cannot abide the touch of the demon.  It cannot abide this intimacy with hell, and it is burning away.  His skin is seared where it is trapped, pressed between the incandescent heat inside him and Dean’s body hot and slick above him.  He can feel it, he can feel the heat of the fire, white hot, and it still hurts, it sears him inside but he wants it; he wants it to burn him out, burn him clean, and new, and pure, for Dean.  He wants to be free from Heaven.  He wants his Fall to be over.  He wants Dean to hold him, and press his lips to his neck, forever.  He wants to scream Dean’s name and come with Dean inside him.  He wants to fall asleep with his hands full of black feathers, after.  He wants, he wants.

“My grace, Dean, it's on fire.  You lit it. Your mouth.  On mine.  It's so bright, inside.  Bright and hot, for you.  Shining, just for you.  Shining.”  He realizes he's babbling and he tries to pull himself back on message, because there is a critical message here that he does not want to get lost.  “Don't stop, Dean, please, Don’t stop, don't stop.”  He clings on, tight as he can, his fingers slipping on sweat-slick skin, digging in to Dean's back.  

“Course not, Cas.  Never.”  And he means it, he wants this to last, last as long as it can, last forever.  He keeps to a slow, sweet, rhythm, even though every pulse of blood in his veins is screaming at him to go crazy with need, to rupture and flay and claim and own Cas, every inch of him, every part of Castiel’s pale skin that is offered up and bared to him, guileless and unmarked and pure.  He holds on, holds out, though Cas is hot like the barrel of a fired gun beneath him and around him and he has to gasp out a cry with every thrust forward.  “Cas,” his voice is so high, it’s almost a scream, “You’re on fire, baby.”  

“On fire for you, Dean.  Don’t stop.  Don’t ever stop.”  

They rock together.  And Castiel's eyes are bright like the stars and they shine for Dean and he cannot look away.  And Dean's mouth is soft, and sweet, and it is lighting Cas on fire and all he wants to do is burn.  And the invisible hand grips them, their promise rippling out away from them, bringing the universe in line, and they are the axis it spins on; they are the center of the whole world.  Heavy thunder rumbles in the depths.  They don't hear it.  It is only “Dean, Don’t stop, Don’t stop,” and “Need you, angel,” and panted breaths and Dean’s thumb crooked in Castiel’s mouth.  They kiss at each other but both are too broken with need to focus the kisses; they are only warm mouths wet on slick bodies, open and needing.   

Dean fucks Castiel good, and slow, until he thinks he is going to go mad from it, and still he just cannot look away from Castiel’s eyes.  The last fume of Castiel’s grace flares up and burns out, and Castiel does not belong to Heaven any longer, he blogs to Hell, to Dean, to the Master, wholly, and he does not care, because Dean is inside him and he has never felt like this.  He wraps his arms around the small of Dean’s back and pulls him closer, deeper, harder.  “Fallen,” he whispers, staring into Dean’s eyes, a tear rolling away.

“My angel,” Dean replies, staring back, not blinking, thumb on Castiel’s lower lip.  “Always.”  

Time and light and the world spiral away from them, as they move against each other.  What they are experiencing is not only sex, it is not only love, it is forever.  It is a promise.  It is why the universe was created.  It is why Castiel watched the earth for a million years.  It is why Dean Winchester came back from the dead, again and again.  Their minds and bodies are wrecked, and flayed, against each other and still Castiel screams, “Closer,” and comes so hard he loses consciousness, and Dean comes too, in the same moment, screaming Castiel’s name.  A crack splits in the stone floor of their room, and all the lights go out.  

It is over.  Castiel is Fallen.       

 

***** 

\---Present---

Castiel sleeps a restful sleep under the white blanket Dean laid across him, with Dean watching over him.  He feels light, and he dreams soft dreams of lights the color of Dean’s lips sparkling and rolling over him and warming his skin.  When he wakes, Dean is asleep beside him, his hand reached out towards Castiel’s shoulder but not quite touching, like he isn’t sure whether he can, or should.  Dean’s long lashes rest against his cheeks and he breathes softly.   _My beauty_ , Castiel thinks, and smooths back his hair.  Dean leans in to it, even asleep, he leans in to Castiel’s touch.  Castiel smiles.  

He is healed completely of all marks and hurts; Dean’s hands and lips on him yesterday took them all away, one by one.  He dresses to go see Sam, anyway, black jeans (Dean’s) and a heathered grey t-shirt that is loose enough to drape lightly over the scars of his wings.  He doesn’t like to feel anything on them, anything but Dean’s mouth, and hands, which is why he usually goes shirtless.  He goes barefoot and Dean’s jeans are just a little too long for him, and they wrap around his heels.  He stops by the library to acquire volume two of Cain’s hell journal before he goes to Sam.  

Sam is awake, though he is laying back on his shelf with his hands behind his head.  He is staring at the ceiling.  “Good morning, Sam.”  

“Cas,” Sam says, but he doesn’t look over.  

“I brought you volume two.”  

“Thanks, you can set it over there by volume one.”  He gestures with his head and eyes towards the stone table in his cell where the first book sits.  

“Have you thought about what we talked about last time,” Castiel asks, as he puts the book down.

“I’ve thought about it.”  It's clear from his tone that he doesn't think Castiel is going to like what he has to say.

“Tell me.”  Castiel stands strong, and tall, arms crossed over his chest.

“I want to put my Name on you.”  

Cas’ hand goes to Dean’s mark, on his neck.  It burns when he touches it and he feels a flare of Dean, still asleep in their room, remembering the touch of Castiel’s hand on his forehead and searching for it again in his dream.  “Permanently, or--”

“No, just temporarily. I want to talk to you and know I’m talking to _you_.  I want to know you’re telling me the truth.”

“That could break me.  Tear me apart.”  It could.  If Dean and Sam have different imperatives for him, he could tear himself apart trying to fulfill them both.

Sam sits up and swings his legs down over the side of his ledge.  “Only if Dean tries to oppose me, while you’re wearing it.  And why would he?  All I want is for you to tell me the truth.  If we can trust him, if he’s not manipulating you, if it’s all like you say, then he has no reason to do that.  Our objectives should be aligned.”

Castiel thinks about this.  Sam’s not wrong, he could wear two Names if they don’t try to force him in two different directions.  It would take a lot of trust, on his part.  Trust that they wouldn’t make his mind a battleground.  Trust that Sam would in fact relinquish his claim-- that he would not try to make his Name permanent on Castiel's skin by magic or other artifice.  He nods.  “Ok.”  He says.

Sam looks a little surprised, because he knew that asking this was asking a lot, maybe too much, and maybe he didn’t believe that Castiel would agree to it.  “Ok.  Do you know my Name?”  

Castiel smiles ruefully at him.  “Of course,” he says.  “Brother of light.”  He manifests a red sharpie in his right hand and takes the cap off in his mouth.  

 Just before the tip of the pen touches his skin, Sam reaches out, toward him.  “Woah!  Right now?  Just like that?  What about Dean?”

Castiel worries the cap of the marker for a moment as he tilts his head and looks at Sam.  “Dean's asleep.”  The ghost of a smile edges on to his face, but he wipes it away.  “I told you, whatever you thought of, I would do my best to give it to you, Sam.  I told you the truth.  I always have, since you've been here.”

Sam looks a little ashamed, at this, because he is asking Castiel to do this for him, to show him so much trust, trust that he won't break Castiel's mind in to splinters, or try to own him, when he has not shown Castiel trust at all.   _Because,_ he has not shown Castiel trust.

“I want us to move forward.  What you have asked is within my power.  You are right, if I do this, you will know the truth.  I want that, Sam.  I will do this, for that goal.  Our ‘ _objectives are aligned_.”

This time Sam does not object when Castiel presses the pen to his skin.  He draws rapidly, confidently.  When he connects the last line… Nothing happens.  He holds his forearm out, and peers at it.  The drawing looks correct.  He thickens the thinnest line, to make sure the individual glyphs are all connected, fully.  Nothing happens.  He touches at the mark on as neck, and flushes when he is for a moment thrust into Dean's dream.  Dean.  He smiles.  He can still feel Dean.  He is… Warm.  He caresses at the mark on his neck with curled fingers, and tips his head towards it.  He should be able to feel Sam now, too, but he feels…. Nothing.  Only Dean.  He shifts his body.  Nothing of Sam.  Only Dean, heavy and intense, covering his skin like the scent of a night blooming flower.   

He holds his arm out to Sam.  “Correct?”  He asks more confidently than he feels.  “No tricks?  No obfuscations?”  And he offers Sam the marker, tail end first.  Sam studies the drawing carefully, and Castiel holds his breath.  He's not sure what he hopes, in this moment; time is moving by too fast for him to think.  Better for Sam to notice some detail amiss, and suspect trickery where none was meant?  Or better for Cas to be mysteriously immune to magic that could have bound him even when he was an angel?   Neither trickery nor mystery have been his friends, on Earth.

Sam bites his lip and shakes his head.  “No.  Perfect.  Wow, Cas, your recall is amazing; you can't have seen that more than, what, once?  Twice?”  He is impressed in spite of himself.     

“I burned it into your ribs, Sam, when the Angels were looking for you.  That was… Memorable.”  He straightens, thoughts whirling faster than he can catch and examine them.   _What is happening?  Why am I immune?  To Sam, but not to Dean?_ Time is still passing too quickly, each second is not enough to answer the questions spinning round and each second is a second too many while Sam is waiting.   “What would you ask of me, Sam, and know truthfully?”  Castiel asks, to stall.  Hoping that Sam will have to think carefully before he selects a question.

Hoping in vain.  “Castiel,” Sam says formally, immediately.  “Tell me the truth.  Do you want to go back to Heaven?”    

“ _NO.”_  He says it emphatically and stares at Sam as he says it.  “I want to stay here, with Dean.  I promised him, ‘Always’.  I promised him freely.  I promised him with my blood.  I promised him with my heavenly grace, as it burned away from me.  I gave him my halo and set it upon him to keep.  I gave him my angel blade and I showed him my neck.”  This last one is a lie.  He is lying to Sam, though he was bound and asked to answer truthfully.   _Why_ .  He stretches his body again.  Dean is so strong upon him.  Sam has no claim to him.  No one else does.  Only Dean, bound to him with blood and lust and love and need and promises and power and desire.  Bound to him forever.  He shivers.   “I won’t break that promise, for anything.  Not _anything_ , Sam.  I will stay here, always.  With Dean.  Always.”   Should he be afraid, that he is owned so completely?  He doesn’t feel afraid.  He feels warm, and safe, and sure.  He feels like nothing can ever hurt him again.   

Sam looks surprised, again, but he barrels onward, determined.  “What is Dean?”

Castiel doesn't have to tell the truth, but he wants to.  “Dean is a demon.  He is the Master of the Pit.  He is who the darkness fears, as he always has been,”  And Castiel belongs to him.  He belongs to the boy with the green eyes and the freckles and the easy smile and the soul that shines bright even when it is surrounded by darkness.  He belongs to the Master, black winged and black eyed; strong and merciless and complete in his dominion.  He holds his hand to the mark on his neck, as he says this, and he can feel Dean longing for him, in his sleep.  Dean is dreaming of him.  Dean wants him.  He smiles again.  “He is still Dean.  He loves me, though he doesn’t know how to say it.  He reaches for me, when I’m gone.  He takes care of me, the best he can.  He calls me ‘Angel,’ though I am Fallen.”  He shifts slightly; he wants to leave Sam and go back to Dean and wake him, thrust his tongue into Dean’s mouth and grip his neck and roll underneath him.  He wants Dean to fuck him with eyes still heavy from sleep, with hands slow and lingering warmly on his body and still scented of sandalwood.  He wants to hear Dean whisper, “Need you, angel,” when he comes.  He wants all of this, even with Sam’s Name writ upon him.   

“And do you love him?”  Sam’s eyes are wet, and his voice breaks a little, and it seems that he asks this against his better judgement; that this is not one of the questions he planned and calculated and scripted when he conceived of this test.

Castiel looks askance at him, and tilts his head.  His eyes narrow.  “No one has ever loved anything as much as I love Dean.  You didn’t have to ask that, Sam.”  

Sam’s eyes are still wet, but he looks a little bit ashamed of himself, again; he knows, too, that he didn’t need to ask that, and it wasn’t fair to ask it while Cas was under his thrall.  He nods a short, apologetic nod, and gulps down a swallow, and smooths his hair back behind his ears.  He has one more question.  “What are you going to do with me?”  

Cas’ head tilts further.  “We’re going to keep you safe, Sam.  We don’t want you to ruin yourself because you think you have to save us.  We don’t need to be saved.  We don’t want to be saved.  We’re going to keep you here until you trust that.  And then we’re going to hope that you will stay with us, after.  Because Dean loves you.  And you’re my brother.”

Sam looks shaken by that, and he hangs his head.  “You can take it off,” he says hoarsely.  “Wipe it off.”

“Are you sure?  There’s nothing else you want to--”

“Take it off, Cas.  I don’t want to do this to you, anymore.”

“You’re not doing anything--”

“Just take it off.”  

Castiel finally nods, and he rinses the mark off under the running water at the back of Sam’s cell.  It’s sharpie and he only has a simple bar of soap so the mark doesn’t come off all the way, staying scrubbed and red and smudged on his pale skin.  Sam is not looking at him anymore.  

 “I’ll visit you again soon, Sam,” Castiel says, before disappearing.  Sam doesn’t say anything at all.                    

 

***** 

\--- _Past---_

“Dean.”  Castiel is tapping on his bicep, trying to wake him.  Castiel rose back to consciousness and found Dean collapsed on top of him, wings still spread around him, breathing the light breaths of sleep

Dean doesn't want to wake up.  All his limbs are heavy and Castiel is so nice and warm, holding him close.  “Mnnnnmnnn what Cas.”

“I think I'm hungry.”  

Dean's eyes don't open and his cheek doesn't move from where it is pillowed on Castiel's chest.  “You think?”

“I'm not sure.  The last time I was human the sensations were so overwhelming.  I never quite learned to separate them all.”

Dean thinks about this.  “Well, when was the last time you ate?”   _The last time he was human the sensations were overwhelming, Dean,_ a cruel voice mocks in his head.  The Mark pulses.  When it talks, it sounds like Cain.

Cas squints.  “I was human in 2013 so… A year and a half?”

“What!”  Dean squawks.  Now, he is awake.  “A year and a half!  Cas, what the hell, man, you've gotta be starving!  Why didn't you say something before?”  

Castiel casts his gaze down.  “I told you, Dean.  I wasn't sure.  And…”

“And??”

Cas’ voice is low when he replies, because he knows Dean won't like the answer.  He looks away from Dean, his eyes cast off to the side.  “It hurt, Dean.  It just hurt.  Before now.  It just hurt too much.  To notice.  If I was hungry.  Or if I wasn't.”

“Cas.”  Dean's eyes are wide, now, and liquid.  Of course Cas didn't have time to notice if his stomach was growling, when his wings were being crushed and sliced.  Of course, it didn't even register.  Which is why Dean should have been paying attention.  Why Dean should have been taking care--

“But I'm better now, Dean, “ Castiel is quick to interrupt, before Dean can berate himself for too long.  Castiel's eyes are liquid, too, thinking back, on all of that, but they are also earnest.  “I'm better, because of you.”  And it was true, he was.  The angels had stopped hurting him, because Dean had Hunted them.  His grace had stopped scorching him, because Dean had touched him, and burned it away.  He was getting stronger, because Dean's promise was woven through him, and with it Dean's power.

Dean spreads a hand out wide, palm on Castiel's pale stomach, gentle and possessive.  “Can I go get you some food, Cas?”  He looks up, from Castiel's stomach to his eyes.  “I won't be long, I promise.  I'll just go get you something and come right back, I'll be quick--”

“Ok Dean.  It's ok.”  Castiel smiles, and weaves his fingers into Dean's hair.  “I'm not cold, anymore.  Because of you.”

Dean smiles back, dopily, and holds Castiel's gaze.  

“What?”  Castiel says, and ducks his eyes and smiles wider.

“Been a while since I seen you smile, Cas.  Missed it.”  Cas ducks his head further, and his cheeks flush.  Dean likes it.  Dean likes it a lot.  He stretches up to kiss Cas on the forehead.  “You stay just like that.  Just like that.  And I'll be right back, ok?”

“Of course, Dean.  Just like this.”

Dean kisses Castiel's forehead again and stands to put some clothes on before he travels.  A pair of jeans, his knee obscene and exposed through an artless tear.  A black tshirt, v-necked, that ruffles his hair as he pulls it on, cross-armed.  Cas’ tongue grows thick and dry in his mouth.  He doesn't understand how Dean does that, has always done that, affects him so profoundly, without even trying.  He shifts the sheets covering him deliberately down lower, below his hips.  “Just like this.  I'll be waiting.  For you.”

Dean shivers.  He inhales to call his wings and gather his power to travel, and his breath catches when Cas twitches the sheet just a fraction lower, revealing curls of dark hair.  As he translocates, all he can think about is Cas’ perfect hip bones, sharp and taut and now exposed, just for him, and the the warm, pale, skin still covered by soft sheets and waiting, just waiting, for him to uncover it, bury himself in it.  He doesn't know how Castiel does it.  Wrecks him and makes the earth he's standing on feel unsteady, like it might crumble away.  Makes the air around him buzz with potential, with want.  Just by being Cas, just by existing, lightning in a bottle.

He goes back to Burbank, familiar sight of not just one but, as it turned out, numerous porn-related soul reapings, because he knows that there’s an In-and-Out Burger there, with a mall nearby.  He needs to get Cas food, and he needs to get back fast, but there are a couple of other stops he wants to make.  He orders 3 double doubles, two sides of fries, and the biggest chocolate milkshake they make.  A year and a half, Cas hasn’t eaten in a year and a half, Jesus.  He taps his fingers nervously on the counter while he waits for the burgers, anxious to be on his way.  The grease-covered line cook gives him a side-eye when he hands over a bag with 6 patties in it and realizes that it’s just for one guy, and Dean responds with an uncanny smile and a black-eyed wink.  He’s halfway out the door when hears behind him, “Fucking freak.”  

Dean’s vision goes red.  The Mark pulses out hungry and fiery on his arm.   _How dare he,_ Cain’s voice rages.  He half turns; he’s going to slice this fucking punk kid from ear to ear.  Dean is the Master.  His black eyes should bring the weak ones to their knees.  He’s going to bleed him out right here in the restaurant; the white tile floor is going to be covered in red.  He’s going to.  He’s going to.  He turns.  He hasn’t killed since… Since the last angel… He thinks it might have been Camael?  Winged bastards all started to look the same, after a while.  Just like demons.  Just like any other monster.  Two weeks, maybe, since he took his halo and laid him low? He hasn’t killed since...

He hasn’t killed in two weeks.  The Mark is roaring now, but it hadn’t been until that fucking kid opened his stupid mouth.  It had been quiet, distant, warm.  Quiet while he was with Castiel.  Quiet while he took care of him.  Quiet while he kissed Castiel and held him close and rubbed his hands over the scars of his broken wings.   _Angel_ , Dean thinks, the death mask on his face breaking open for a moment.   _Always savin’ me_.  He turns back towards the door, and grits his teeth.  He is not here for a kill.  He’s here for Cas.  He thinks about Cas’ smile, the first smile he’s seen on Cas’ face since the Fall.  Cas is waiting at home, there, for him, warm and soft.  He has to take care of Cas.  He doesn’t want to come back to him covered in blood.  

He can’t clench his jaw any tighter, so he clenches the hand that’s not holding his cheeseburgers into a rigid fist.  He thinks about Cas moaning beneath him, eyes closed, calling his name.  The pulsing of the Mark subsides.  He exhales, and opens his eyes.  He hadn’t realized he was holding his breath.  He hadn’t realized his eyes had been closed.  He inhales, deeply.

He hurries through the rest of his errands.

When he returns to Castiel, in the Pit, he has the bag full of cheeseburgers, and two other bags.  He puts the food down in front of Castiel first.  Cas’ eyes widen when he opens the bag and sees what’s inside.  “Dean.  You brought me cheeseburgers.”

Dean smiles smugly.  “‘Course Cas.  You think I’d forget something like that?  Those make you very happy.”  Cas smiles at him again, and Dean thinks his heart might burst. He squeezes one of Castiel's hands in his own, brings it to his lips for a kiss. “Wanna make you happy, baby.”

Cas unwraps the first burger and takes a huge bite out of it, chasing it with a not at all sexy slurp of milkshake.  Dean is completely fixated on it anyway.  He shakes his head to snap out of it, and opens up another one of the bags he brought back with him.  “Got you a phone, too.”  He starts unpackaging it.  “You’ve gotta be able to reach me all the time Cas.  If we’re ever apart.”  Cas pauses chewing for a second.  “Don’t want you to be feeling cold, and alone, and not be able to find me, Cas.  I can’t be away from you, if I don’t know you can find me.  If I have to worry you might be cold.”  Cas nods and takes another huge bite.  “You gotta promise me, baby.  If you need me, you call me.  You don’t stay here and suffer.  You promise.”  Cas nods again.  “Good.  And I’ll come back.  You gotta know that too, I’ll always come, when you call.”

“Thank you, Dean.”

“‘Course, Cas.” He watches Castiel chew huge bites of cheeseburger for a while, enthralled with how Castiel’s eyes roll back with every bite.  He shakes himself out of it to gruffly hand over the contents of the last bag.  “Got you this, too,”  he says, and looks away.

Castiel puts down his cheeseburger and wipes his hands on a paper napkin before he accepts what Dean has thrust out towards him.  It is a wool sweater, impossibly soft.  Impossibly the exact blue color of his eyes.  He feels the fabric between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand.  He looks up at Dean, with a question on his face.  

“Don’t want you to be cold, if I’m gone,” Dean says, and his face is flushed.  Castiel puts the sweater on.  It ruffles his hair when it goes over his head, and he freezes for a second when it settles on has back, afraid it is going to tear at the scars of his wings.  It doesn’t.  It is just soft, and light, and warm.  

“Thank you, Dean,” Castiel says, again, and it’s not just for the sweater.  It’s for everything.  For wearing his halo.  For laying the halos of the others at his feet.  For promising him, Always.  For holding him tight.  

“‘Course, Cas,” Dean says again, though he doesn’t look up, and the blush doesn’t recede from his cheeks. The Mark is silent on his arm.

Cas eats the rest of the cheeseburgers one handed, because Dean is holding his other hand and won’t let it go.

 

***** 

_\---Present---_

Dean is dreaming of Castiel’s mouth.  It has been all over him, finding every secret and delicate place and kissing there; it has bitten his shoulder so hard that he has cried out, and bruised, and bled.  But when he dreams about it, like now, he dreams about it like it was that first time:  soft and warm and pliant, opening for him and welcoming him and pressing against him so sweet; when Castiel’s eyes shone and he could not look away.  “Cas,” he whispers in his dream.  “Castiel.”  Castiel is naked against him, warm, and his mouth is open and slick.  Castiel’s arms wind around his back, and his mouth finds Dean’s neck and sucks there, hot and wet.  His eyes are slits.  His hands slide up and down Dean’s back, and he twists a leg around Dean’s.  Dean holds him tight.  “Cas,” he repeats, and mouths at the knob of Castiel’s shoulder.  

“I love you, Dean,” Castiel says, “I love you.  Only you.  Forever.”  His voice is disembodied, it sinks into Dean though Castiel’s open mouth hasn’t left his neck.  A strong hand circles around Dean’s ribs, to his chest, and rests warm over Dean’s heart; the other finds the small of Dean’s back.  A third hand, a hand that is not from the dream, caresses Dean’s forehead, smoothes his hair back.  Dean leans in to them all.  No one has ever touched him like Castiel does, with such reverence, such care.  He is starved for it.  He thinks he always will be.  It is something essential about his nature, about the spaces that are left empty inside him from his childhood, that he craves this gentle touch, needs it.  Castiel understands.  Dean doesn’t have to tell him, and he understands, and in the dream Castiel shifts so that more of his skin finds Dean’s, as much skin as possible.  This is what Castiel would do, if they were awake.  This is what Castiel does, in the dream.  

The hand on his forehead pulls away.  Dean whines, and seeks towards it.  He doesn’t find it, but dream-Castiel comforts him immediately; wraps around him and holds him close, everywhere, and whispers in his ear, “You’re my heart.  Be my everything, Dean.”  Dean melts, against him.  Dean melts, inside.

He wants all the Castiels, the real one, the dream ones, the ones in alternate timelines that he failed to take care of, the ones in the past, the ones in the future.  He wants them all.  He wants to find the one whose hand left him, and bring him here, where it is warm, but this one, this dream one around him is clinging to him, needy, and mouthing underneath his jaw and starting to get hard against him.  “Please,” dream Castiel says, and Dean gives in wholly to the softness.

“‘Course, Cas,” he says rough, low, and rolls them over from their sides until Castiel is pressed beneath him.  “Castiel, “ he says again, and combs a hand into Cas’ hair.

“Dean,” Castiel replies, and mouths at his clavicle,  eyes still slitted, his fingers light on Dean's arms.  “Please,” he says again.

Dean grinds once, down onto Castiel, against him.  Their cocks align for a moment and Dean inhales a gasp.  Dean’s arms hold him up for a moment, above, and his head tilts down so he can see Castiel’s body.  It is so perfect, underneath him.  Lean and strong and pale and trembling for him, just for him.  He wonders if all the angels have bodies like this, or if it is only Castiel who is constructed like he was made for Dean, to be everything he ever wanted.  Would Balthazar rise so sweetly, beneath him?  Would Samandriel’s hands be so strong against his back?  He doesn’t think so.  He thinks it’s Cas.  Only Cas.  Only ever Cas.  “Want you, Cas.  Need you.”  He says, short of breath, nudging his nose against Castiel’s shoulder, and he grinds against him again.  

It’s a dream, so he can keep doing that for a long time.  Grinding against Cas and hearing him moan prettily beneath him.  Rising up on a cloud that hangs in a sapphire sky.  If this were real Dean couldn’t do this; he would break the headboard again, like he did the first time, trying to keep this pace; Cas would flip him over, it would get rough, Cas’ mouth on his neck would turn to biting and Dean would bruise Cas’ arms, just trying to hold on, and come like a crack of lightning: too fast, too soon.  But this is a dream, and he keeps going on and on, it is forever in the dream, just slow and warm grinding against Cas and inhaling his tiny moans, and repeating “Need you, angel,” so many times that it loses meaning, and just becomes the music and cadence of the dream.  He rises in his cloud, pillowed and safe; diffuse and warm, until all his senses are blurry and golden and raw and the whole world is Castiel beneath him.  The dream is so real, the friction, the pressure on his throbbing cock is hot and tangible and he thrusts into it, a wrecked sound escaping him, and he thrusts into it again.  

“Dean,” whispers the angel beneath him.  And at the same time, “Dean,” says true Castiel, voice gravelly and hot.  He comes into it, into the velvet of that voice and the heat of that body, he comes like water boiling over, he comes until he is dry and empty and parched like desert.  And he wakes.  

Castiel’s hand is stroking him, covered in his come, Castiel is sitting upright beside him stroking him and staring at him with wide eyes.  “Beauty,” he says, and strokes softly.  Dean ducks his head and blushes, despite what he has just shared with the dream-Castiel.

“Cas.”  He tries to take Castiel’s hand, wet and sticky though it is.  Cas wipes it off on the blankets and lets him.  He lays down next to Dean so he can hold his hand and look into his eyes, and say, again, “You’re so beautiful,” and when Dean casts his eyes down he keeps talking.  “I didn’t know you needed that, Dean.  I didn’t know that’s what you wanted.  I should have. I should have seen it...That no one ever touches you that way, that no one ever has, no one but me.  I should have remembered, what you were like, our first time.  How gentle, how sweet.  But now I know.  Now, I can give that to you.”  

Dean covers his eyes with their joined hands.  “C’mon, Cas,” he says, his voice barely a whisper.  

“Everything you want Dean.  Everything you need.  Forever.  That’s what I promised you.”  

“Shhhh, shh, Cas, C’mon,” Dean says, and kisses at Castiel’s knuckles shyly.

That’s when he sees the red splotch on Castiel’s forearm.  He pauses.  “What happened to your arm, Cas?”  He grabs at it with his other hand, and focuses his power to start healing it, but nothing happens; this splotch is not an injury, apparently.  He sits up, more alert now, the dream fading into a pink cloud behind him.  He feels it go and it makes him feel hollow inside.  It hurts so much to lose that, right now, when he is open, and vulnerable.  He thinks he might cry, but his voice is dangerous when he says again, “What happened to your arm, Cas?”         

Cas looks down at his arm, lying between them like a corpse.  He doesn’t answer, right away.  Dean is becoming hysterical.  “ _What happened to your arm, Cas?”_

Cas gently pulls it away from Dean’s grip and cradles it against his body.  When he had returned to their room, Castiel hadn’t been decided yet about whether he would tell Dean what had transpired between him and Sam.  He knew that Dean would not like it.  It would upset him that Sam had asked that of Castiel, it would upset him that Castiel had acquiesced to it, knowing how badly it could break him.  But he also didn’t want to keep it from Dean; he didn’t want to keep _anything_ from Dean, and if he didn’t tell Dean now there was an even chance that Sam would tell him (if he was feeling suicidal), or at least confront him with the information gleaned during the test.  

He had thought he would wash the mark off, and think a little while, just a minute longer.  He had thought he would lay down next to Dean and watch him sleep, and that he would meditate to the rhythm of Dean’s breaths and be able to decide, that he would think of the right way to tell it so that Dean would understand, and not be afraid.  But instead when he walked in to their room the mark on his neck had pulsed hot and warm and he felt what Dean was feeling in his dream, and he felt Dean taking him like that, taking him gentle and slow like their first time, and he couldn’t resist him.  He had to feel, to touch; he had to be part of it, he had to feel Dean’s skin, his hardness, against him.  He _had_ to.  

“I wrote on it with a sharpie,” he hedges, and Dean just waits, with eyes that are expecting the worst; eyes that know how bad the worst can be.  “I went to see Sam.  I wrote out Sam’s Name.”  

Dean doesn’t say anything, he just closes his eyes, and turns away.  He draws the sheet up to cover his bare chest.  Maybe he will cry.  The dream is completely gone, now.  He can’t even remember what it felt like.  Hasn’t he always felt like there was a cold, sucking hole in his chest?  

“He asked me to.  He said he wanted to talk to me and know I was telling him the truth.  He wanted to ask the same questions he has been asking, ‘ _What is Dean,’ ‘What has he done to you,’ ‘Do you want to go back to Heaven’”_ \-- _Do you love him,_ Castiel doesn’t say, “He wanted to ask and know that I was telling him the truth.”  

Dean presses a hand to his temple.  “But why would you… why would you say ‘Yes’?  That could have hurt you Cas.  Could have hurt you real bad.  If he had asked you to do something I didn’t want.  If he had asked you to turn against me.”  A pulse of heat bursts in Castiel’s face when Dean says that last part; that hadn’t even occurred to him.  When he had been considering, briefly as he did, whether to accede to Sam’s request, it hadn’t even occurred to him that Sam would want him to hurt Dean, once he had control of him (or thought he did).  “He could have taken you from me,” Dean finishes, in a broken whisper.

“He just wanted to know the truth, Dean.  And I wanted that, too.  I’m OK, Dean.  We just talked.  He just asked me the same questions. I just gave him the same answers.  I’m OK.”  Dean is shaking now, this doesn’t seem to be making him feel better.  That the worst _didn’t_ happen and that now their situation with Sam is somewhat improved doesn’t seem to matter to the knot that is eating through Dean's chest; it is not loosening.  Castiel can feel it.  Castiel can feel the hurt, still, roiling inside.  Eating at Dean like a squirming mass of worms.  “Dean, it’s OK.  I’m OK.  What’s wrong?  I’m OK.  I’m here, with you.  I’m safe, I promise.”          

“But,” Dean opens his eyes.  He reaches out, slowly, to touch his Name on Castiel’s neck but he stops, before he makes contact, remembering what it felt like when Castiel pulled his arm away, and feeling cold inside.  ”I thought I was the only one.”  

It hits Castiel like a slap.  Dean sounds so hurt, so betrayed.  The pain in his voice stabs at Castiel and if that wasn’t bad enough Castiel _feels_ it too, he feels now what Dean feels, it feels like a hand of ice is squeezing his heart.  And a thought, so loud and sharp in Dean’s brain that it punches through to Castiel’s consciousness, too.   _How could he give this to anyone else?_

_Oh my love_ , Castiel thinks.   _Oh, how you have been so abused.  Oh, how lucky it is that I found you._ ”You are.  Dean.  You’re the only one.  Always,” and he takes Dean’s hand again, and holds it to his heart.   

”But, you… you...”

”You are the only one, Dean.  Sam put his Name on me, yes.  But even while I was wearing it, I only belonged to you.”  

”What…?  Cas, that doesn’t make any sense.  When someone puts their Name on you, they, they,”  Dean’s voice breaks.  “They _own_ you.”  He spits it out, like it is burning on his tongue.  “How could you… How could you _let_ him…”

”Sam’s Name didn’t touch me.  It couldn’t because of how I am covered in you.  Covered like armor.  Like sunlight.  You’re everywhere Dean.  All over me.  There’s no crack, no chink where his Name could get in and hold me.  He asked me to tell him the truth and I could have lied.  He asked me what you are and I didn’t have to tell him.  Because it didn’t matter that his Name was on me, it didn’t even scratch at the surface.  I only belong to you.  Only you, Dean.  Only you, ever.”

Dean’s eyes are still cast down.  His heart is still pushing ice water through his veins.  Castiel raises their joined hands and kisses at Dean’s knuckles.  

“He asked me if I loved you, and I could have stayed silent.”

“But what did you say, Cas?”  Dean’s voice is a shaky whisper.     

“But I told him I loved you more than anyone has ever loved anything.”  Cas stares into Dean’s eyes when he says this.  He stares into them and he is strong and sure, like he is every time.  Like Dean can’t believe he is every time.  

Dean sobs, and pulls Castiel down against him, and thrusts a hand into his hair.  “You can’t do that again, Cas.  You can’t.  It could hurt you so bad.  I could lose you.”

“Ok, Dean.  I understand.  I won’t.  I won’t.  I won’t.  It’s OK, I’m OK.  I’m here.  I love you.”  

“OK. God, I’m glad you’re ok.  You’re so brave, to try that.  So strong.  My angel.”  

“Yes Dean.  Yours. Forever.”

Dean flexes his hand in Castiel's hair and kisses at his forehead.  “I'm going to go see Sam.”

 

*****

\---Past---

Dean takes Castiel again after the cheeseburgers.  He can barely wait for Cas to ball the paper from the last one up and toss it in the grease stained bag.   To have his hands in that soft, black, hair again, to wreck it while Castiel moans.  To have Castiel spread out beneath him again.  His fingers itch with it, as he watches Castiel eat, and he is on him as soon as he is finished.  “Gonna take this off you,” he smiles against Castiel's mouth as his hands find the hem of Castiel's sweater.  “Gonna feel you, everywhere.”

Castiel shakes, and raises his arms over his head.  As soon as his face is clear his eyes lock on Dean's.  “Yes, Dean.  Again.  Please.  Show me.”  It makes Dean hard in his jeans.   _Show me._ He shivers.  Here they are, Dean and Castiel, trembling against each other.  Dean doesn’t _tremble_.  He never has, before.  He doesn’t shake with anticipation of putting his hands on someone else’s body.  His pulse doesn’t beat harder in his chest just because he is looking in someone else’s eyes, just because someone else is looking back, at him.    

But Cas is looking at him.   _Castiel_.  Castiel is looking at him, and his eyes are warm and his pupils are dark, and again he can’t look away.  “Cas.  Your eyes.  I just.”  His head shakes.  His eyes don't.  His voice lowers, almost like he hopes Cas won't hear him,  “Beautiful.”   He lays his hands flat against Castiel’s bare chest.  Breath comes in, breath goes out.  He is lost in Castiel’s eyes.  Castiel is lost, in him.

“Dean,” Castiel breathes, and then they breathe into each other, for awhile.  Eyes locked together, held in place by _Always_ .  The world is moving around them; they are stationary.  Everything else is so _fast_ , but between them time has stopped, it stands still, for them, so they can see.  See each other. See into each other.  See so much.  They see what they always used to see, when they looked at each other.  They see _Forever_ .  They see what they have promised each other now.   _Always_.   Blue and green.  Always.

Dean takes Castiel’s face in his left hand.  “Are you real?” he breathes.  Maybe this is all a dream.  Maybe this is Heaven.  Maybe he is dead; maybe the Mark took him.

Castiel tilts his head and narrows his eyes.  “Of course, Dean.  I’m real.  Can’t you feel me?” He covers both of Dean’s hands with his own.  

“No, that’s not what I… I mean is this real?  Are you here, with me?”

Castiel understands, and his gaze softens.  “I’m more real now than I’ve ever been, Dean.  Before, I occupied all the planes, of reality, all at once and you were only on one of them.  Now, I am here, entirely with you.  I am no where else.  All of me is here, only here, only with you.”  

“But you weren’t, before?”  Dean’s eyes are tearing up now.  It hurts so much, to think that Cas could have been with him, but not really with him.  That what he used to feel when he looked at Cas was _everything_ , that it tore him up inside and made him hurt until he was numb, with the need, the wanting, and that Cas was barely there at all.  That he only ever had a part of Cas, before, no matter what he wanted, no matter what he needed.  How insignificant was he, to this being of grace and power, to an Angel of the Lord, whose name was a sacrament?  He wants to look away, and hide his tears, but he can’t.  He can’t look away.  He can only stare into blue eyes while tears leak away from his own.  

And Castiel can only look back, and feel his heart tear into shreds as he watches Dean cry.  He can’t look away as he sees it, he really sees it, what Dean felt for him, what it did to Dean when he was away.  How badly Dean wanted to touch him, when he was untouchable, and how much it hurt him that he couldn’t.  He knew, somehow, he always knew, but he didn’t let himself feel it, he didn’t let that knowledge rise to any part of his mind that could have done something about it.  Because he was afraid?  Because he was guilty?  Because he didn’t know how?  But now he has to see it.  Now he has to know.  Now he looks into Dean’s eyes and they are wet and he cannot look away.  Now, their promise won’t let them hide anything, from each other.  

He takes Dean’s face in his hands.  “My heart was always with you, Dean.  Always.  But sometimes my attention had to be… divided.  Sometimes.  It was terrible.  I hated it.  I hated it, always, every part of me that had to be away from you.  But sometimes I _had_ to be away.  Heaven...”  He knuckles his eyes, they are leaking.  And when he takes his hands away he pierces Dean with his gaze, holds him fast, because this next part is important.  “But not anymore.  Dean.  Not anymore.”        

Dean breaks apart completely at this, the tears aren’t only streaming, now, he is sobbing, and he still can’t look away from Castiel’s eyes.  It is the most open, vulnerable, he has ever been, crying hot, salty tears while someone else stares into his eyes.  Why is it so different to cry when you are looking into someone’s eyes, and they are looking back?  When someone else can see you?  All of you?  “Not anymore,” he rasps out.  He can’t hide, this.  His promise won’t let him.  He can only cry while Castiel stares gently into his eyes.  He can only let the tears leak out while Castiel brushes them away with his thumbs, and kisses them away with with soft lips.  He can only cling to Castiel and kiss him back, and sob “Not anymore,” as Castiel’s fingers brush into the hair at the back of his neck.  And when Castiel tries to pull back, he can only bury his face in Castiel’s chest, and tighten his arms around Castiel’s neck, and plead “Don’t stop.  Cas.  Please.”    

And then he can only whimper as Castiel kisses him everywhere, face, chest, abdomen, and whispers “Beauty,” and holds him with strong, sure, hands.  He can only sigh as Castiel climbs on top of him, and rides him, chest pressed to his chest, hands on his shoulders, eyes locked on his, whispering, “Dean, Dean,” and bending in to take his bottom lip in a kiss.  He can only cry out, “Castiel,” when he comes, and wilt into Castiel’s arms with new tears leaking from his closed eyes.  He can only pull Castiel down tight on top of him, and wrap his arms around him, and set his heart out to be stomped on when he says “Don’t leave me Cas.  Don’t leave me ever again.”   

And finally, he can close his eyes and breathe, when Castiel presses his face in against Dean’s neck, and replies, “Never, Dean.  Never.”

Castiel holds him for a very long time.  It might be an age, in Hell, though it is moments on Earth, that Castiel holds him.  Castiel just holds Dean, with gentle hands, and presses kisses to his forehead and whispers “Always.”  Castiel holds him, and he thinks about what he has just seen, what they have just shared, about the tears in Dean’s eyes and the longing, the longing for past-him, the Castiel that was untouchable and never entirely there.  

“Why didn’t you ever say anything?” he asks.  “If you felt like that?”  

It would have been hard for Dean to answer this, before, but he has looked into Castiel’s eyes while he cried, now.  He has shown all of himself.  There is nothing left to hide.  “Because I was afraid.”  

Castiel thinks about this, silently.  Dean isn’t afraid of anything.  Dean has faced every evil and danger and monster imaginable.  But Dean was afraid, of him.  

“I’m sorry,” he mouths into the hair on the top of Dean’s head.  He is.  His sorrow is heavy on his heart.  

“Me too, Cas, “ Dean murmurs, against Cas’ chest.  “But not anymore, right?  We’re gonna be together now.  We’re gonna make up for it.”  

“Yes.”  Castiel replies.  “Yes.”  And he squeezes Dean against him, and holds him, still.  

Dean is silent for a long time, thinking.  When he speaks again, he says:  “I know what we need,”

“What’s that?”  Cas answers fondly, running his fingers through Dean’s hair.

“We need pie.”

 Cas smiles.  “Anything you want, Dean.”

Dean dresses again.  He kisses Castiel on the forehead, again.  Again, he tells him:  "You stay here.  Just like this," and again Castiel answers, "Of course, Dean."  It hurts, when he leaves, this time.  Not in his heart, it hurts him in his body.  It is a sharp ache, in his chest.  He never wants to leave Castiel again.  Not even for a minute.  Not now that he has him.  All of him.    

He goes to a diner in Camden, Iowa, with a neon sign you can see for miles through the corn fields.  It’s dark, on Earth, when he arrives, and the sign is bright and buzzing in the night air.  He’s been to this place before, he knows what they have, he knows what he likes.  He flirts with the waitress to give him the entire blueberry pie, even though it's their last one.  Blueberry pie and chicken and waffles, for Cas.  Has Cas ever had chicken and waffles, before?  He can’t remember.  He remembers that Metatron likes waffles.  Liked waffles.  Before Dean killed him.  He can’t eat waffles, anymore.  Or hurt Castiel.  Serves him right.  Douchebag.  

As he flies back to the Pit, he wonders if there are kitchens in Hell.  Great, hot furnaces for ovens, where he can make Castiel pizza and cookies and a cake for his birthday.  He’ll have to ask Crowley.  He's smiling when he returns to Cas, thinking about it, thinking about Castiel with vanilla frosting on his nose, Castiel not understanding the point of the sprinkles.  Castiel not understanding the point of licking the bowl clean, either; Castiel going crazy for it when he tries.  Dean kissing him while he’s sweet and sticky and tastes like vanilla.  He arrives back in their room, and he’s smiling when he says “You ever had a birthday cake, Cas?”  

But the smile melts from his face when he sees Castiel.  Hugging his knees on the edge of their bed.  Wearing his blue sweater, and soft grey pajama pants.  His back to Dean.  Rocking himself gently.  He is hunched in over himself, and his posture and the soft, color-blocked clothes remind Dean of when Cas was institutionalized.  He drops the plastic bag full of diner food and rushes to the bed, rushes to kneel in front of Cas, wrap his arms around.  “What’s wrong, baby?  What’s wrong?”  

Castiel sniffs.  “I’m just… _here_ , Dean, I’m just here.  Just here, a person, nowhere else, nothing else, powerless, weak.  What am I supposed to do now, Dean?  Now that I’m not an angel any more?”

Dean answers right away.  “Anything you want. Isn’t that the point?”

Cas shakes under Dean’s arms.  “Is that what you’ve been doing?  What you want?”

Dean’s hands have been soothing over Castiel’s back, up and down, and he slows now.  His voice drops low when he replies:  “‘Course, Cas.  Been with you.  Been keeping you safe.”

“You’ve been shirking your duties in the Pit.”

“My ‘duties’?  I’m not the night watchman at Fort Knox, Cas, I don’t feel very bad about leaving Hell to its own devices.  What is this?  Where is this coming from?”  

Castiel ignores his questions.  “They need someone to rule them, Dean, the demons of Hell are the last creatures who should be left to their own devices.”

“I don’t want to rule them.  I don’t want to rule anyone.  I wouldn’t know how.  Cas, what’s going on?”

Castiel sniffs again.  He straightens up.  “I could--  I could show you.  I could help you.  I could be with you.”  He sounds almost desperate.

Dean thinks maybe he understands now, what this is.  “You don’t have to, Cas.  You don’t have to do anything, you don’t want to.  You just have to be Cas.”   _That’s all it takes, for me to love you_ , Dean thinks, but he doesn’t quite say it.  

“I don’t even know what that means.  Without my grace, without my Father, without the Host… I don’t even know what that means, Dean.”  He buries his head in his knees.  “I can’t help you, anymore.  I can’t heal you, I can’t fight for you, I can’t save you.  Without my connection to the firmament, I’m nothing.”  

“Hey, hey, Cas.”  Dean tilts Cas’ head back up, with two fingers.  “Hey.”  He looks straight on into Castiel’s eyes, and tries to be sure, and steady, like Castiel always is for him.  “You always save me.”  He thinks back to the In-n-Out Burger, how he almost killed that kid, how he could have.  Cas opens his mouth but Dean places a finger over it.  “Always.”  Cas nods, just barely.  “We’ll figure this out, OK? We’ll…”

Dean pushes back, suddenly, and slaps a hand against his chest and gasps.  It feels like something is _pulling_ him.  Not his body, but his… his _soul_ .  Something is _yanking_ him, like he’s a fish and he’s been hooked.  He hears Sam’s voice, in his head.  He’s chanting.  In… Latin?  He’s chanting, and Dean doesn’t understand it, but he recognizes it.  He knows what it sounds like, when you chant to summon a demon.  He never knew what it felt like for the demon, before, though.

His hands scrabble on Castiel’s arms, he tries to resist.  Castiel’s eyes are bright with alarm.  “Dean, what, what’s happening?”  

“Sam, he’s… he’s summoning me.  Cas, I can’t stop it, I have to go, I have to…”  

“Dean, what, no, don’t leave me!”  

“I can’t, I can’t stop it,” tears of frustration prickle around Dean’s eyes.  “I can’t help it, I have to go.  Don’t leave Hell.  Don’t even leave the Pit.   It’s not safe.  I will come back to you, Cas.  I will come back to you, I swear it.  Promise me you’ll stay here.  Promise me you’ll stay safe, for me.  Wait for me.  I will come back to you.  I will, I will, I swear it, I swear…” Dean’s body is fading  and so is his voice as he keeps pleading, and “ _Castiel,”_ is the last word that Cas hears, just a quiet rustle on the hot, still, air in the Pit.  Air that suddenly smells like blood, now that Dean is gone.

“Dean, no, don’t go, Dean, no!” Castiel’s hands try to find purchase on Dean’s transparent form and can’t, they slip right through.  “NO!”  He sobs.  

But Dean is gone.      

  



	5. Brother of Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s a terrible plan. But it’s better than lying in a corner scraping at the floor; almost anything would be, and it’s all he’s got.
> 
> How many times has he had to say that, to himself? That it’s a terrible plan, but that it’s all he’s got? It's never stopped him before, and it doesn't stop him now. How many of Hell’s creatures have been ended, by Dean Winchester’s terrible plans? How many of Heaven’s? And of Purgatory’s, Christ, “Find the Angel.” Barely even a plan at all, but how many of them had fallen before him? Before he escaped? Carrying one of the damned with him? 
> 
> And he did find the angel.

Chapter 5:  Brother of Light

 _This is a gift_  
_It comes with a price_  
_Who is the lamb?_  
_And who is the knife?_  
_Midas is king_  
_And he holds me so tight_  
_And turns me to gold in the sunlight._  
_\--Raise it up (Rabbit heart), Florence + the Machine_  
  
\---Present---

_Dean flexes his hand in Castiel's hair and kisses his forehead.  “I'm going to go see Sam.”_

“He didn’t hurt me.  He didn't even try.  Don’t forget that.  Don’t do something you’ll regret.”  Cas’ hands trail lightly over Dean’s body, as Dean pulls away.  “I’m ok.”  

“Ok, Cas,” Dean replies, though his heart’s not in it.  He is sulking, and thinking.  Cas doesn't see Sam's use of mind control on him as ‘trying to hurt him,’ but Dean's opinion differs.  He thinks that the fact Sam was willing to risk it at all is harmful enough, in and of itself.  Sam didn't know it wouldn't work.  Sam tried it anyway.  Castiel doesn't perceive it as hurtful, but it's enough to start the red fog smearing and smoking around the edges of Dean's vision.

He travels.  The berry juice devil’s trap is still stained into the floor of Sam’s cell, and it tugs at Dean as he translocates.  Sam is so resourceful.  Even with only his breakfast, he found a way to try to trap Dean.  Even with nothing, he found a way to get his mark on Castiel, and try to control his mind.  Anger throbs in Dean, and the Mark throbs with it.   _He tried to take what’s yours.  What should only be yours.  Not your brother.  Not your friend._ Cain’s voice.  The red haze grows out from where it is writhing in the corners, and glazes over Dean’s vision.  He almost lost Castiel.  He almost, he could have.  Sam didn't know it wouldn't work.  It should have worked.  And then Sam could have told Castiel to free him; he could have asked Castiel something he didn't want to answer; he could have tried to get Castiel to hurt Dean, he could have done or tried a million things that could have torn Castiel apart.  He could have.  It came too close, far too close, to catastrophe.  

Dean's blood rushes in his veins, pounding heavy through his heart.  

The promise of ‘Always’ echoes in the air, and ripples blackly around him.  It would have acted, if it had come to disaster.  It wouldn’t have let Dean and Castiel be parted, not for long.  Maybe it did act.  Maybe that’s why Sam’s mark had no power over Castiel.  

Sam had tried to part them, once before, when Dean first turned.  He had learned, then, what the promise between Dean and Castiel could do.  They had all learned, then.  That it was more than words.  Sam must remember that, he must.  It must have been on his mind when he let Castiel make that mark on his arm.  And he risked it anyway.  He risked doing that to Cas, to Dean.   _Not your family,_ Cain taunts delightedly, in his mind.

Dean’s blood boils over and his eyes turn to black as he arrives in Sam’s cell.  He charges out of the completely ineffective devil’s trap, hauls Sam up by the lapels of his plaid shirt, and punches him in the face.  “You tried to mind control Cas.  You could have _hurt him._ You could have _killed him_ , you son of a bitch.”  He throws Sam onto the ground like a rag doll, disgusted.    

Sam rises back to his feet carefully, but doesn't strike back at Dean.  His eyes make tiny, jerky movements as he thinks hard, and fast.  He swipes at the blood dripping from his split lip, and shoves his hair back out of his face.  “I'm sorry, Dean.  But I had to know he was telling me the truth.  Do you get that?  He looked like… He looked like you _hurt_ him.  He's my friend too.  He's down here in _Hell,_ bruised up, bitten up, he's my friend too, and I had to know.  What would you have done, in my place?”

Dean’s pulse slows to an ugly thud.  He clenches his fist.  His knuckles have Sam’s blood on them.  He remembers what Castiel looked like, that first day, when he visited Sam.  He closes his eyes.  He tries to think about what he would have done, if Castiel had come to him looking like that, and he hadn’t known why, if he hadn’t been the one to hear him beg to be bitten harder.  What would he have done, if Castiel had come to him covered in bruises?  What _wouldn’t_ he have done?

Dean’s body feels cold and clammy, and the Mark is a coal on his arm.  Sam is looking at him warily, his lip swollen and seeping blood.   _What would you have done?_  Probably the same thing.  He probably would have done the same goddamned thing. Or something worse.  For Cas.

He could heal Sam, but he doesn't.  He's sorry that he punched him, came in all demon, eyes blazing.  But he's not that sorry.  

“Anyone else did that,” He looks away from Sam's gaze.  “Anyone else did that, I'd kill them.  I'd put them on the rack.  Do _you_ get _that?_ ”

“I do, Dean, I do, I get it now.  Or I sort of get it.  He told me…” Sam takes a breath here, like he isn't sure how to proceed.

He doesn't have to.  “I know what he told you, Sam.”  Dean’s voice is rough, and grim.  ”What he told you ain’t the issue here.  You could have _hurt_ him.  You could have _taken_ him from me.  Then I would have… I would have had to…”  Dean's voice breaks, and he can’t keep looking Sam in the eye when he’s thinking about this, so he gazes off distantly, his right hand running over the split skin on the knuckles of his left, where his fingers clench open and closed.

”Dean.  I wouldn't have…  I wouldn’t.”  Sam pauses, and his voice is soft when he continues.  “He told me he loves you more than anyone has ever loved anything.  He told me that under compulsion.  It had to be true.  I _wouldn't_ have.”

Dean’s eyes snap back to center.  ”Yeah, about that, Sammy.”  He takes a deep breath.  Too much shit has gone down because he and Sam have lied to each other.  He is trying to move them forward, here, stop repeating the same old dance.  He has this image, in his head, of himself and Sam and Cas, drinking beer, eating pizza, being happy.  Maybe they’re eating and drinking in Hell, if there’s a dog under the table, begging for scraps of pepperoni, maybe it has three heads and speaks Latin, but they’re together, and they’re safe.  That’s what Dean wants.  It’s kind of golden, this image, around the edges.  He wants to make it happen, he _can_ make it happen.  But it’s not going to happen, he’s not even going to be able to let Sam out of this cell, as long as they can’t trust each other.  And for them to trust each other they’re going to have to start telling each other the truth.  All the time.

“He wasn’t compelled to do shit.”  

Sam blinks his head back.  “What do you mean?  He was, Dean, he wrote my Name on his arm right in front of me.  I watched him do it.  He showed it to me, and asked me if it was right.”

“Yeah, I know.  He did.  I saw it too.  But it did jack-all.  Because of me.  Or his tattoo.  Or the promise.  Or some combination of all of those, we’re not really sure.  But you didn’t compel him.  Everything he told you, he told you because he wanted to.”  

“Dean, that’s not possible.  You know that’s not possible.  You know how Names work.  You know this.”  

“Yeah yeah, so does Cas, so do you, so do little boy blue and the man in the moon.  I also know that shit goes cock-eyed around us more often than it doesn’t.”  Dean runs his hands through his hair in frustration.  “I don’t know what to tell you, man, he wasn’t compelled.  He told you what he told you because he wanted to.”    

Sam’s eyes narrow, as he thinks this through.  “He told me that you were a demon, but that you were still Dean.  Is that true?  Or was he lying to me?”  He seems to be asking himself this, as much as he is asking Dean.

Dean answers, anyway.  “You know that I’m a demon, you’ve seen me poof in and out of here like it ain’t nothing to appear out of the middle of nowhere.  You’ve seen my black eyes, you know I’ve still got the Mark, you’ve burned me with holy water, yourself.  But you know that the devil’s trap doesn’t hold me.  You know that I can’t be exorcised.  You know that I didn’t just kill you for pulling that shit on Cas.  What do you think?  What he said, that sound about right?”

“I don’t know, Dean, everything about this is pretty hard to take.”

“Yeah.”  Dean deflates a little.  “Yeah, Sam, no shit.  Here I am, Master of the Pit, chosen,

Knight of Hell, didn't even believe in demons 10 years ago, got this shit on my arm,” he raises the Mark, “Gonna live forever.  You're telling me, it's hard to take.”  He sits down on Sam's ledge, and the expression on his face is almost wry.   “But I don’t know what to do to help you understand, Sam.  You gotta tell me.  Help me figure it out.  You asked Cas for something, and he gave it to you, though it didn’t turn out how you expected.  I’d do the same.”  

“Will you let me out?”  

“I can’t let you go back, Sam, I--”

“No, I understand, not _back_ , _out_.  Out, and, like, I don’t know, around.”  He waves his hands.  “Let me have freedom of movement.  I’d have a lot easier time believing you weren’t evil if you weren’t imprisoning me in a doorless cell.”  

“Sam, I don’t know…” This is a pretty reasonable request, all things considered, and Dean doesn't _like_ imprisoning Sam. But this could also go so wrong, in so many ways.  And not all of them only bad for Dean and Castiel; it’s not real safe for Sam Winchester to wander around like a little lost lamb in Hell.  Dean grits his teeth.   _Trust.  Moving forward_.  He exhales.  He doesn't like this, either.  “Cas has to go with you.  Whenever you’re out.  You can’t be out there by yourself.  You could hurt us.  You could get hurt.  I’ll let you out, if you let Cas go with you.”  

Sam nods; maybe he expected this.  “I can deal with that.  Thank you, Dean.”  

“I’ll send him to the bunker, too, to get you some clothes, some of your stuff.”

“Thank you, Dean.”

“You’re welcome Sammy.  He’ll come for you soon.  Think about where you want to go on your all access VIP tour of Hell.”  

Sam smiles, for the first time since he’s been down here.  “I will Dean.  Thank you.”  

“Yeah, yeah, you’re welcome. Don’t make me regret it.”  

And then he is gone, and Sam is left smiling at thin air.

 

\---Past---

_“Sam, he’s… he’s summoning me.  Cas, I can’t stop it, I have to go, I have to…”_

_“Dean, what, no, don’t leave me!”_

Dean is jerked through a cold black.  Damp, cool, air, rushes over his body. _I will come back to you, Cas.  I will come back to you, I swear it,_ he promises into the dark, not knowing whether Cas can hear it or not, feeling Cas’ hands scrabbling on his body, trying to hold him.   _Castiel._  But he can’t be held.  Sam is summoning him, Sam has called his name, Sam has slit his palm and let his blood drip into a golden bowl, and the blood magic is like a claw around Dean’s chest, dragging him out of the Pit.  Dragging him to Sam, heart first, through the nothing between the planes.  

He collapses on the floor of a dungeon in the bunker.  He recognizes it, though he’s usually been on the outside.  There is a devil’s trap on the floor, which, like the walls, is made of rough hewn stone.  Ten feet by ten feet, the cell is empty, windowless, featureless.  An iron door is in front of him, heavy, plain, except for a foot square hole filled with thick, black iron bars. He immediately tries to translocate back to Castiel, but whatever Sam's summoned him with has got its hooks in him deep and he can't poof out.  So instead he roars out his anger, with black eyes, baring his teeth.  

Sam is standing on the other side of the barred door, his face visible through the window, his hand still bleeding as he finishes the incantation.  Dean scrambles up off the floor and rushes at him, and Sam takes a surprised step back when Dean passes over the edge of the devil’s trap in the floor without a flinch, to grab at the bars in front of Sam’s face.  “Sammy!” Dean yells through the space between the bars.  “What the hell, man?!”  

Sam’s face is impassive, he recovers almost immediately from the surprise of Dean’s charge over the devil’s trap.  He woodenly starts an exorcism:  " _Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica..."_ Dean rattles the bars at him, and snarls.

When the exorcism is finished, Sam’s head cocks. He is clearly expecting _something_ to happen, but nothing does, no smoke bursts from Dean’s mouth, he doesn’t collapse like a puppet with cut strings, the black doesn’t fade from his eyes.  Nothing happens except that Dean once again releases an outraged roar and rattles the bars, and this time it causes Sam to step back in shock.  Fear starting to crack through his carefully stone-faced expression, Sam picks up a flask of holy water with a finely shaking hand from the table with the golden bowl full of his blood.   _He really went all out,_ Dean thinks, _Holy water, golden bowl, blood magic, the whole shebang._

Sam splashes the holy water at Dean, and Dean reels back with smoking skin.  “‘The fuck?!” He chokes, as he stumbles backwards onto the floor of the dungeon.  This is actually the first time anyone has poured holy water on him since he’s taken the Mark.  It stings like a bitch.    

“What have you done with Dean?”  Sam asks, his voice rough, but controlled.

“I am Dean, you melon-headed son of a bitch!  Have you gone blind?  Has your herbal shampoo finally rotted out your brain?  I am Dean!  You just summoned me yourself!”  Dean yells, while manically trying to dry off his burning skin.  

Sam shakes his head.  “You’re not my brother.”  Dean just waits for him to continue, and keeps wiping at his skin with the plaid of his shirt.  Sam’s eyes narrow.  “I’ll figure out what you are eventually, though.  It would be easier on us both if you’d just tell me now.”  

Dean pauses and huffs out a breath.  He closes his eyes.  “I.  Am.  Dean.”  Like it is taking him all the patience in the world to repeat something so simple and obvious.  And, really, Sam _did_ just summon him, and he _did_ call him “Dean” when he did it, so Dean would have thought that it _was_ actually obvious who he was going to get.  “Who did you think you were summoning when you called ‘Dean’?  What, did you expect Elvis?”   

Sam evenly twists the lid back onto the flask of holy water, and sets it down.  “Have it your way.”  He turns towards the stairs up out of the dungeon, to leave.  “I’ll be back.”

“Sam, wait, no--” Dean reaches out towards him.  He presses his face up to the bars.  Sam pauses, but doesn’t turn back around.  

“You gotta let me call Cas.  Let him know where I am, that I’m OK.  You gotta… he’s by himself… he’ll be…” Sam turns, then, and though his face is angry Dean presses on desperately.  “You gotta let me call him, Sam.  Please.”  

“You’ve got Cas?”

“What do you mean ‘got’ Cas?  He’s with me, yeah.  Or he was, until you summoned me here.  He’s gonna be freaking out, Sam, let me call him, just one call, just give me your phone for 2 seconds, Jesus.”

“I summoned you from _Hell._ ”  

“Well yeah, Sammy, that’s where you live when you’re Master of the Pit,” and Dean realizes this is way, way, too sarcastic for dropping a piece of news like that on the demon-hunting brother who has him imprisoned in a cell in a dungeon full of demon-killing weapons about five nanoseconds after it is out of his big, stupid, mouth.  

Sam’s eyes narrow again.  “You have Castiel in _Hell_.  Big mistake, asshole.  If I were you, I’d fess up to _me,_ _now_ , before my brother gets to you.”  

Dean looks up at the ceiling and takes another deep breath.    _Let’s try this again.  A little easy on the stupid, this time, Winchester._ “I don’t ‘have’ Cas.  He is _with_ me in my _home_ , because _I am Dean_ and I also happen to be a Knight of Hell now.  You know this Sam.  You remember Cain, you were there, you’ve been studying it nonstop for months.”  Sam doesn’t say anything, just keeps looking at him with narrowed eyes.  Maybe because he hasn't seen Dean since he came home to a bunker with floors covered in blood and no sign of a Castiel anywhere in Heaven or on Earth, and those facts change the equation just enough from the one he had been studying for him to not believe a word Dean says.  Dean has turned; Sam is sure of it.  This isn't his brother, anymore.

Dean barrels on.  “Just, let me call Cas, please?  You can talk to him.  He’ll tell you.  You can ask him whatever you want, wouldn’t you like that?  To talk to Cas and be able to know that he’s OK?  I have his number, I set up the damned phone for him, I can reach him for you if you just give me your phone for 2 damned seconds,”   _Better.  Much better, Dean._

“I’ll think about it.”  Sam says, and turns to go back up the stairs.  “You think about what my brother’s going to do if he finds out you’ve got his angel.”  Dean double takes at that, since _since when does Sam think of Cas as ‘my angel’?_ and calls out for him, again, “Sam, wait,” but this time Sam doesn’t turn around, just keeps walking until he’s out of view, and then slams closed what sounds like a heavy, heavy, door.  

Dean slumps down on the floor, as far away from the exit from his cell as he can get.   _Cas_ , he thinks.   _I’ll come back for you.  I swear it._

 

\---Present---

When Dean leaves Sam’s cell, he wants to go to Castiel, to explain to him the new terms of Sam’s imprisonment and ask him to go back to the bunker to get some clothes and comforts for Sam.  Hell is a big place, but it’s easy to find Castiel, for Dean.  It always has been, since the promise; he is tugged towards him, like the needle of a compass.  He points towards Castiel.  

Cas is in the throne room, and there are demons circled around him, waiting for him to notice them and tell them what to do.  They don’t do anything, anymore, unless Castiel tells them.  He is draped over Dean’s throne carelessly, his back against one arm, his knees bent over the other.  He isn’t noticing any of the demons, right now, he’s flipping a knife in the air and ignoring them.  It's one that Dean gave him, the knife.  Gold.  Big, uncut, chunks of emerald ornamenting the hilt.  When Dean gave it to him, Castiel thanked him solemnly, and when he blooded the blade on his bare forearm he said that the jewels reminded him of Dean's eyes.  Dean blushed, but he knew.  That is why he had selected it.  So that Castiel would be reminded.  Of him.

The demons watch the knife rise and fall and wait for Castiel, silent.  They are awed, and afraid.  He will rule them when he is ready, and not a moment before, and until then they will wait.  Dean enters covertly, to watch, to just watch this beauty reclining on his throne, easy and graceful and deadly as a snake.  And _his_ .  Castiel's eyes are bright and fierce, the only blue like that anywhere in the smoky, red-tinted Pit.  Maybe the only blue like that anywhere.  They are slitted now, and his head is tilted back in recline, pensive, gazing up into the heights of the chamber where the air grows thick and dim and hides the ceiling from sight.  The column of his throat is bare and pale and shadowed with dark stubble where his head tilts back, and his Adam’s apple bobs when he swallows.  His neck is unmarked, apart from his tattoo, since Dean healed him yesterday, and it calls to Dean, that pale expanse, it calls and reaches into his skin and heats, and prickles, and he itches with the need to mark it and claim it again.  They should _know_ , the demons should _know_ , the demons, and anyone else whose eyes fall on Castiel.  That Castiel is _his_ .  His name is not _enough_ , there are too many people who wouldn’t recognize it for what it is.  He should be written there in _blood,_ bright and bold and red for anyone to see.  He imagines it; Castiel's pale throat red and welted from his teeth.   _Mine._

His mouth opens and he licks his lips, his body shifts to adjust to his arousal, and the motion catches Castiel's eye.  He snatches his knife out of the air and snaps his eyes onto Dean’s.

“You are the only one,” he says, instead of a greeting.  He doesn’t speak loudly, but it echoes clearly through the silent chamber.  He says it like it has been on his mind, like he has been thinking about it, like maybe he hasn’t been thinking of anything else, since that moment when Dean saw Sam's mark on his arm and doubted him.  Demon heads all turn to see who Castiel is talking to, and then demon bodies are prostrating themselves, faces touching the ground.  Dean ignores them, just as Castiel has been doing, as he strides across the chamber.  A hushed whisper follows him.  When he reaches the throne he climbs on top of Castiel, straddling him.  

“Mine,” he says, and wraps a hand around the back of Castiel’s neck, to press their foreheads together.  God, how Dean wants him, has to claim him, could have lost him, but has him now, hot underneath.  He is hard and aching, where he presses against Castiel, and Castiel grinds against him, instantly responsive, for Dean, when he feels Dean's hardness against his hip.  “Gotta have you, angel.  It's gotta be right now.  I have to--”  Dean can’t even finish his own sentence, bracing Castiel’s jaw with his hand so he can kiss him hard, possessively.  His hips are already fucking against Castiel’s body, needing him, needing him now, his other hand roaming everywhere.  

“Yes, Dean.  Anything-” Castiel loses his breath to a gasp when Dean grinds down against him again, harder, rougher, and tightens his grip on Castiel’s jaw.

A rustle rises among the demons.  Dean doesn’t hear it.  Castiel hears it, but doesn't care.  They know that Dean will hurt them if they look at Castiel, now.  He has done it before.  More than once.  He takes their eyes.  Castiel is only for _him,_ even the sight of him.

Castiel’s mouth is red and wet from Dean's kiss, his lips parted around breaths already grown heavy, and Dean wants to be, has to be, inside.  He drives in, tongue deep, and, God, Castiel’s mouth is so hot around him.  Castiel has been ruling in the Pit, and he tastes like fire, and salt.  He is so hot against Dean, clinging to him, wrapping around him, legs around his waist, arms around his shoulders, pulling him in closer, deeper, instinctively, like all his body’s reflexes exist only to pull Dean inside.  Dean has to have him, have him _now,_ has to _own_ him, all of him, has to mark him again, has to make him scream his name in front of all the witnesses of Hell.  Make him scream it so that the angels hear his name echoing in the empty halls of Heaven and are afraid.  

His cock aches, thinking about it, just thinking about Castiel undone like that, crying out beneath him.  Dean pushes him down harder against the throne, and Castiel whines because the throne is iron, and unforgiving, and it bruises into his back, and he whines because he _loves_ it.  He loves it that Dean wants him, like this.  He loves that it is hard, and sharp, and that it is going to hurt him sweetly tomorrow.  

“Gonna make you scream,” Dean rasps, lowly into Castiel’s ear, following the words with his tongue, wet and hot.  He is.  God, he is.  He is going to do _everything_ to Castiel.  

And Castiel _wants_ it.  “Yesss,” Castiel pants.  “Yes _._ Yes, anything.  Dean, _please.”_ Demons with wings are using them to cover their heads, like curtains.  Demons near exits are shifting as quietly as they can on claws and scales.  They want to keep their eyes.

Dean devours Castiel, his tongue down his throat, lips splitting against his face, holding Castiel’s jaw tight with one hand as he finds the button on Castiel’s jeans and opens it with the other, pulls down the zipper, runs his knuckles rough over Castiel’s length.  Castiel whimpers into his mouth when Dean grips him, hand hot on his hardness.  “Moan for me, angel,” he growls, stroking him, milking him until he is wet.  “Want to hear you.”  And Castiel does, he does, he moans wanton and loud for Dean, and grinds into his hand, unashamed.  He is desperate for Dean, for his mouth, his hands, his cock, and he doesn’t care if his moan is full of that desperation, laid bare for the audience of demons frozen like stone around them.  He doesn’t care if they know, how much he wants Dean, how he _needs_ him.  He doesn’t care if the angels hear him.  Dean will kill them soon, anyway.  

“God, when you moan for me,” Dean chokes out, inhaling the scent of Castiel’s skin, his hair.  Fire, and salt, and underneath, Castiel.  Mountain streams and ozone and the cold light of the stars. “God, Castiel.” The scent is driving him crazy and he tastes Castiel’s skin, licking broad stripes up Castiel’s neck, over his jaw.  “Gotta have you,” his tongue presses deep into Castiel’s mouth.  “God, I've got to have you right now,” one arm wrapped around Castiel’s shoulders, pulling him up, pulling him close, while the other hand continues to stroke him, hard, and rough.  Just this side of too hard, too rough.  

“Dean, yes.  More,” Castiel pants, hands scrambling at Dean’s fly.  “More.  Please.”  Because it’s not enough.  Just Dean’s hand on him, Dean’s tongue in his mouth, it’s so good, but it’s not enough.  No matter how hard.  No matter how rough.    

A garden blooms in Dean’s mind when Castiel begs him, it blooms in time lapse, flowers exploding in color and life.  Some of them are the color of Castiel’s eyes, of his own, green and blue together.  Some of them are red like blood.  They are so beautiful, mixed together.  Bright and vibrant and alive.  Everything that is good about life, about Creation.  Together.  

He stands.  Castiel whines and ruts at the cold air, where Dean has left him, but only for a second, before his breath is knocked away by Dean picking him up and slamming him down into a new position.  He gasps to try to get oxygen into his lungs as Dean presses his face and chest back against the throne, spreads his knees roughly on the unforgiving seat.  But he can’t, his breath can’t catch up with his heaving, because Dean doesn’t give him time.  First, because he pushes his fingers into Castiel’s mouth, filling him up and making him lightheaded, choking on Dean, choking on desire that flares hot all through him.  And then because as soon as Dean’s fingers are gone from his mouth, one is slipped inside him, crooking and working him open and taking his breath away again.  

Castiel whimpers, and his back tries to arch up because it feels so good, but when he moves he realizes that Dean’s other hand is on the back of his neck, holding him down against the throne.  He whines with breath he doesn’t have and because he can’t move up, he moves back, farther, deeper, onto Dean.  He pants weakly, breath condensing on the warm iron in front of his face.  He arches up again, just to feel Dean hold him down.  

Dean squeezes the back of his neck.  “God, Cas.  Fuck.  So perfect for me, you don’t even know, just, _Fuck._ ” Dean says, his voice awed and breaking, fucking at Cas with one hand and holding him down with the other, his cock begging to be inside, afraid he won’t last long enough to get it there with Cas whining and panting and squirming back against him.

“Yes, Dean.  For you.  Please.  Need you.  Dean.  More.”     

Dean gives him more.  He finds Castiel’s prostate with three fingers, and Cas is sparking and trembling; it is overwhelming, it is too much, he can’t stop whining, he can’t be quiet, he can’t breathe, he can’t be still even though Dean is holding him down with a hand like iron on the back of his neck.  He exhales a long, high, shrieking whine, and his hands scramble ineffectively against the embellishments decorating the back of the throne.  “Dean,” he cries out,  “ _Dean._ Don’t stop.  Don’t stop. _”_

He's calling out Dean's name but he's not screaming yet, so Dean doesn’t stop, he doesn’t even give Cas the moment he would need to catch up, catch his breath, finally.  Instead he unbuttons his own jeans and frees his red, leaking cock with one hand while still fingering Castiel open with the other.  “Mine,” Dean whispers, wrapped around Castiel’s back, as he pushes into Castiel in one long, sure, thrust.  No hesitation, no pause, he seats himself deep, pushing in as far as he can, reveling in the drag and the heat, biting his lip to keep from coming on the first thrust, stretching Castiel out as he shrieks and slaps his hands against the back of the throne.  The shrieks and the heat and the tightness and Cas begging for him and writhing beneath him make his blood rush in his veins and his heart pump fast in his chest  and his head feel light and God, it feels so good.  This is what he wanted, Castiel underneath him.  Castiel in his arms.  Castiel hot and wet and panting and broken and screaming and _his,_ completely.  He presses his hand down harder against Castiel’s neck and rises up straight and tall behind him and imagines what the demons would see, if they weren’t too afraid to look up.  Him tall and strong and black-eyed, dominant and sure above Castiel, this angel, beautiful and delicate and bent over, submitted to him and shrieking and mindless from the pleasure of it.  

He groans, a long groan, imagining it, holding Castiel down and feeling him everywhere, pressed against his whole body, underneath him, around him.  With rough hands on Castiel’s hips he positions him to find the angle he knows makes sparks burst in front of Castiel’s eyes, and then he is fucking him sharp and hard with no other preface, one hand back on Castiel’s neck, the other guiding his hips, Castiel shrieking again with each thrust, hands gripped white knuckled around the back of the throne.  “Mine.” Dean growls as his skin slaps against Castiel’s, trying to make each thrust harder than the last, trying to fuck himself so deep into Castiel that nothing can ever dislodge him.  He _is_ the only one, Castiel is _his_ , Castiel is his _Forever,_ he _promised._

Castiel is senseless from it, his head lolling on his neck, still unable to catch his breath because every time he tries to inhale Dean slams into him from behind.  He can’t make words any more, it’s beyond him to do more than shriek, but he needs Dean to understand, he needs him to know:  it feels so _good_ , he _wants_ it, just like this, just like this, just like this forever, he wants to be _torn apart_.  He doesn’t want Dean to remember this later and think maybe he did something to Cas that Cas didn’t want, he doesn’t want Dean to remember this with tears rimming his eyes when Cas will remember it with a hard cock and quickened breaths and a hand on himself.   He releases the back of the throne and holds onto Dean’s hands, pulling them against him harder, fingertips white from the pressure.  When Dean slams forward, he slams backward, into him, every time.  And when he can’t take it anymore, when stars are bursting in his eyes like fireworks, and his legs are twitching and his heart is galloping so fast he thinks it might explode, he screams Dean’s name, he screams it out like he is trying to fill the enormous room with it and shatter the rock around them, he screams it out and comes, and clenches down on Dean, as tight as he can.

All the air in Dean’s lungs is expelled like he has been punched in the stomach, so hard that it hurts and he bends in half from the force of it.  The change in position brings his face down to Castiel’s shoulder, and he buries his teeth there, and bites down until he tastes blood.  “Mine,” he growls again, as he comes like an explosion inside Castiel, fucking in and out tiny thrusts in uncontrollable aftershocks as Castiel whines more and more softly until he is, finally, silent.

Dean collapses, the hand that was on Castiel’s hip now caressing softly over the bleeding imprint of his teeth, the hand that was holding down Castiel’s neck now threading softly into Castiel’s hair.  They are both panting heavily, Castiel’s arms dropped limp at his sides, his eyes closed and wet at the corners, trying to be mindful of every sensation that he feels so that he never, ever, forgets:  the hard iron underneath his knees, smooth against his cheek, Dean’s hand on his neck, his shoulder, the warm trickle of blood and the ache where Dean has bitten him, the stretch where Dean is still inside him, the tremble in his thighs, the tightness in his calves, the curl of his toes, the weakness in his arms, the pressure around his chest as he, finally, gulps in air, the scent of fire and blood, the infinitesimal, terrified, shuffle of the demons all around them.

“You are the only one,” he repeats, his voice scratchy from the screaming.  

Dean reaches an arm around his chest and squeezes him close.  “Castiel.  Mine.  Always.”  

They stay like that, fucked out, still, panting, against the back of Dean’s throne.  They stay like that while the sweat cools off their skin, and they stay like that still when their skin heats up again from the swelter of the Pit.             

The demons don’t even dare to breathe.

 

\---Past---

Dean has an itch under his skin.  At first he thinks it’s from inaction, because he’s stuck in a cell slumped up against a wall, and he needs to be _doing something_ , to get back to Cas.  He paces.  He paces for a while.  The itch doesn’t get any better.  He slumps back down against the wall, throwing his body against the hard stone floor with complete disregard for bruises that will heal in a few seconds.  

He feels better slumped against the wall, actually.  He thinks he might feel even better if he were slumped in the corner.  Where the two walls can press against each other, into his back, comforting, like a hug.  He squeezes into the corner and slumps down as low as he can get.  That feels better.  The stone floor is cool against his legs.  He thinks maybe it would feel cool on his back, so he lays down flat, squeezed into the corner.  Ahhhh.

This is when he realizes something is wrong.  Dean isn’t the kind of guy who slumps down in a corner at the first sign of trouble.  Especially when the source of the trouble is only his _little brother_.  He should be fighting, spitting, kicking and yelling, scheming, getting out of here.  He stands back up and paces manfully for thirty seconds, but the itch under his skin comes back, stronger than before.  That corner is calling to him.  He eyes it.  He ignores it.  The itch sinks in, until it almost starts to be a burning, instead of an itching.  He rolls his eyes and sits in the corner.  It feels a little better.  He stands.  Burning.  He sits.  Itching.  He lays on the floor.  Almost gone.  The lower he gets, the further down he sinks, the better it feels; the stone floor cooling the discomfort in his skin.  He tries the other corner.  Not as good.  He tries leaning against the iron door, which actually is colder than the floor.  Not as good.  He lays back down in the corner and tries to figure out what is going on.

It doesn’t take him very long.  Actually he figures it out right away, because he’s a pro and he knows how this stuff works, but he keeps brooding for ten more minutes after he figures it out, because he doesn’t want to admit it to himself.  

What he doesn’t want to admit to himself is that he recognizes this itching, has felt it before.  It feels like the hand that gripped him when he promised Castiel, ‘Always,’ the hand that drew him to Castiel and wouldn’t let him look away, even when tears were in his eyes and all he wanted to do was hide.  It feels exactly like that, only a hundred times stronger, a thousand; instead of a prickling around his eyes it’s a colony of tiny biting ants chewing at his flesh from inside.  So he knows why he wants to be squeezed down into the corner of his cell.  He wants to be there because Hell is underneath the floor.  And Castiel is in Hell.  And he has promised Castiel that they will never be separated again, promised it with his blood.  

He's been parted from Cas on other occasions, since the promise; when he went for food, when he hunted in Heaven.  His blood didn't hurt him then.  Because, he thinks, he wasn't being _kept_ from Cas, then.  He intended to be away, and he could have returned whenever he wanted.  Now, he doesn't want to be away from Cas, he wants nothing other than to be close to him, to hold him and tell him he is alright, but he can’t.  He can't return to Cas, down in the Pit.  Cas is there, alone, probably scared, probably cold, still healing, and Dean can't _go_ to him, even though he promised he would, always.  It's bitter, it galls.

His eyes tear up in frustration, and he pounds a fist against the stone wall.  His blood wants to go to Castiel.  His blood _has to_ go to Castiel.  And the floor of this corner is apparently the closest he can get.  He presses the heels of his palms to his eyes.  Fuck.

He next spends an extremely frustrating 10 minutes trying to trick his mind, or his blood, or his _soul,_ or whatever into believing that he is not imprisoned against his will in a dungeon, but rather that he is just intentionally visiting his brother for a nice _voluntary_ family get together.  It helps a little, but it doesn't completely stop the itching, which is steadily getting worse, more like burning, more like biting.  Again:  Fuck.

He starts banging on the bars of the iron door of the cell and yelling for Sam, making a loud and annoying noise; the loudest and most annoying that he can.  He heard Sam slam the door down into the dungeon earlier and he heard that it was heavy and thick, but he also imagines that Sam is probably just on the other side of it right now, his nose in a book even thicker than the door.  Or watching him on a camera.  Or both.  He bangs and kicks and yells himself hoarse, until he hears the heavy door screeching open again.

Sam takes his sweet time meandering down the stairs.  “You ready to talk?”  He asks, when he arrives in front of Dean's cell.

“I been talking, Sammy, you just haven't been listening.”

Sam shrugs and turns back towards the stairs.  “Fine, suit yourself.”  

“Sam, wait, wait, I'm sorry.  I'm sorry, ok?”  Sam turns around again,  “I'll let you ask whatever questions you want as many times as you want and even try not to insult your hair while I'm answering, if you'll just let me call Cas.”  He approaches the barred window, slow and non-threatening-like.  “Please,” he tacks on for good measure.

Sam fronts what he probably thinks is a steely poker face, and maybe it would be that, for anyone but Dean, who can see right through him.  Dean can tell, though, that Sam us considering it.

“You don't make the rules here.  I make the rules here, got it?  You don’t get to make requests.”

Dean huffs in amusement and rolls his eyes.  Aiyiyi, his little brother. “Yeah, yeah, ok, have your power trip, Sasquatch.”

Sam's eyes narrow, but he doesn't rise to the bait.  Dean is, absurdly, proud.  He’d hate to really be a monster that was really going to get interrogated by Sam, instead of just his brother, about to be irritated to death.  

“You're going to answer my questions whether we call Castiel or not,” Sam says, iron in his voice.  Dean opens his mouth to argue, but Sam silences him with a canted head and a raised finger.  “You're _going_ to answer my questions _no matter what._ But if I decide that I want to call Castiel to check on him, there are going to be some rules if you want to get to talk to him too.”

Dean makes a rolling  “yeah yeah get on with it” gesture with his hand.  As if he's never been given an ultimatum while in captivity before, Jesus, he knows the drill, he knows how this goes.

“I’m going to talk to him first.  And you aren’t going to make a sound while I do.  And then, if he wants to talk to you, and _only_ if he wants to talk to you, I will put him on speaker and you can have your say.  Got it?”  Dean nods.  Whatever.  He needs to talk to Cas.  He’d agree to wear a Santa hat and stand on one foot while he called, if that was what Sam wanted.  

“Ok.”  Sam grinds his teeth for a moment, pretending like he is thinking it over, though Dean can tell he’s already decided.  Though it hasn’t occurred to Dean until this moment, Sam is probably actually worried about Cas.  He hasn’t seen Castiel since the Stynes, when Cas was going to try to stop Dean from going off the rails, and all the evidence Sam has of that encounter is that it was a bloodbath.  The possibility of getting to talk to Cas and check up on him, be reassured that he’s alright, is too good for him to pass up just because he’s worried that Dean might say something sneaky or manipulative on the phone.  “Ok,” he repeats.  He takes his phone out of his jeans pocket.  “What’s his number?”  

“Christ, really?  Just give me the phone, Sam.”  

“You’re not getting my phone.  You want to call him?  What’s his number.”

Dean rolls his eyes, but he gives Sam the number.  

It’s only half a ring after Sam dials that Cas picks up-- Sam is standing close enough to Dean’s cell that Dean can hear the tinny sound of the speaker.  It makes Dean’s heart hurt to think that Cas was glued to the phone, afraid, worried, waiting for it to ring.  His blood pulses in a hot burst, and he tries to will it to cool off; he’s _working on it,_ dammit, this is the way to make sure Cas is OK, to get back to Cas.

“Dean?  Where are you?  Are you ok?”  Castiel’s first words when he answers.  Of course-- Dean is the only one that knows the number.  

Relief breaks over Sam’s face, and he doesn’t even try to control it, as he has been doing with his other emotions.  His eyes cast up towards the ceiling, and the hand that’s not holding the phone rubs at his forehead, helping some of the pressure of worry that was tight there ease away.  “No Cas, it’s Sam.”

Cas’ voice is as flat and black as new asphalt.  “Sam.  You have Dean.”

“Yeah Cas, I summoned him, though I’m not convinced this is actually him.  But, yeah, whatever is wearing his body, yes, it’s here with me in the bunker.”

"Is he... Safe?  With you?”  Cas sounds like he is trying to be brave, but his fear leaks through into his voice anyway.

“ _Dean_ is always safe with me _,_ Cas, you know that.  I won’t make any promises about whatever’s got him, though.”

“Sam, he’s--”

Sam interrupts.  “That’s not why I called, Cas.  I’m worried about you.   Are you OK?”

“I--”  Cas swallows over the line.  “It’s complicated, Sam.  I’ve… been through a lot.”  Cas is reluctant to talk about his Fall, it seems, and Dean thinks that’s smart.  There’s no way Sam will believe that Cas’ Fall is a positive, nor that it was Cas’ choice.  “I was… unwell for a while, but Dean helped me.  It is Dean you have, Sam.  He helped me, but I’m not completely well yet and… I need him, Sam.  I need him back.”  

“Did he hurt you, Cas?”  Sam’s voice is gentle and concerned, very different from the stone-cold voice he has been using on Dean.  “Do you need help?  You can tell me.  I will help you, if I can, you know that.”

“I know Sam, and I thank you for that but… no.  I don’t need your help.  The best thing you can do for me right now is to give me Dean back.  Please.”  

Dean closes his eyes and swallows.  God, it’s gutting him to hear Cas so sad, and afraid; to hear that Cas needs him and to know that he can’t go to him.  His hands squeeze into fist.  His blood burns through him now with each pulse, bright and hot like melted gold.  

“I don’t know if I can do that yet, Cas.  I need to understand what’s going on with him.  I need to make sure he’s not going to hurt you, or anyone else.  I need to know if I have to try to save my brother.”  

“I, I understand, Sam.  But.  I’m telling you.  It is Dean.  And I need him.”  

“Ok, Cas.  Ok.  I hear you.  Do you want to talk to him?  He’s right here.  I told him you could talk to him, if you wanted to.”

Cas’ breath rushes out in a whush that crackles over Sam’s phone speaker.  “Yes.  Please, Sam, Yes.”

“Ok.  I’m going to put you on speaker, Cas.”

His finger is still on the face of his phone when Dean starts talking.  “Cas,” his voice breaks a little.  “Cas, I’m here.  I’m ok.  Sasquatch just has me pent up in the dungeon, but he’s harmless.”  Sam doesn’t actually look very harmless right now but Dean ignores him.  “How are you?  You ok, baby?”

There’s a little bit of a pause before Cas replies, and Dean’s heart stops until it’s over.  “I’m… Dean, I’m cold.  Without you.  Come back to me.”  

Dean is shaking.  He swallows again.  “I will Cas, I promise, I will.”  His hands fists the bars, and he pulls himself towards them, like being closer to the phone makes him closer to Cas.  It cools his blood, a fraction.  

“You wearing your sweater, for me, baby?  To keep you warm?”  Later, Sam will acknowledge to himself that the moment Dean asked Castiel if he was wearing his sweater is the moment that he started to doubt his conviction that Dean was possessed or otherwise transformed by evil.  Now, he is surprised by this line of questioning-- he thought Dean might threaten Cas, or demean him-- but he tries to keep his face neutral.

“I’m… yes, Dean, I'm wearing it,” Dean's heart plunges.  His sweet angel.  “But… it's not enough.  Need you.  Need you here.”  He sounds so far away.  

Dean squeezes his eyes shut tight, and rests his head against the bars on the door.  “I know baby, I'm coming, I promise, just gotta get Sam off my case first.”

“Dean,”

“You get some of our blankets and you get in our bed and you stay there,” he repeats the ‘our’ for Sam’s benefit.  “You stay there, ok?  It's safe there; no one can get in there to get you…”

“But Crowley--”

“Crowley wouldn't fucking dare,” Dean feels his eyes go black, thinking about Crowley there in his room with Cas.  “I'll kill him,” he snarls.  Sam looks mildly shocked at the ferocity of this, although Dean knows that in general Sam is not averse to putting Crowley out of his misery.

“Dean, no, Dean.  He didn't do anything, he's not here, it's just me, I'm safe.  Please.  Don't worry about him.  Just come back to me.”

Dean takes a deep breath and his eyes flick to green again.  “‘K, Cas.  Ok.  I'm working on it.  I will.  I'll be with you again in no time.  Promise.”  The burning in his blood flares 10 degrees hotter and then subsides when he says this, so he says it again.  “Promise.”

“Dean,” Castiel starts again, but Sam cuts him off with a press of his finger on the face of his phone.  Dean looks up at him, and Sam stares at him, considering, for a long moment.

“I won’t hurt you, if you’re really Dean,” he says, more than a little bit shaken and maybe even a little bit ashamed from listening in on that conversation, intimate and desperate as it was.  He lowers his eyes.  “I just have to be sure.”  It seems that he says this more to himself than Dean, because he doesn’t wait for an answer, he just turns and starts back up the stairs.  

Dean lets him go, because as soon as the phone turned off his blood flared up inside him and he can hardly breathe.  

 

\---Present---

Dean's fingers stir gently in Castiel's hair.  Dean's breath is warm on the back of Castiel's neck.  Dean covers Castiel's body with his own, hands on hands, arms over arms, chest to back, legs around legs, and sweeps tarry wings forward to hide him from the eyes of the demons.  “Beautiful,” he whispers in Castiel's ear.   _Perfect._

Castiel shivers in his heart, but not with his body.  He is too exhausted to move, too spent, too content underneath Dean on his throne though his knees are aching.

Dean blows out a breath and watches it ruffle the soft hair at Castiel’s nape.  He holds Castiel close and thinks that he needs to protect him, because he is precious and perfect and has suffered too much in too cold a world.  His heart pangs with love and he thinks that he needs to make sure that Cas never suffers again, and he remembers that he has promised to take care.  He has promised to keep his angel where it is soft, and safe, away from all hurts.  To keep him, always.  He gathers Castiel up in arms and wings-- Castiel is heavy, his limbs slack, his muscles loose.  Dean breathes in, out, and they are in their bedroom.  

In their room it is small, and close; unlike the vastness of the throne room. In their room there are no doors, no exits to the outside, unlike the throne room, where Dean can't see all the exits at once, no matter how he sits.  Dean has brought Castiel here, where it smells like them; Dean and Castiel, leather and starlight.  Not the fire and ash of the Pit.  Where the light is golden and warm and flickers on candle tops, not hazy and smoked through.  Where their bed is soft and giving and will cradle Castiel, not hard and sharp like the throne that bruised his back.  This is where Dean can care for Castiel. This is where he will.  

He lays Castiel down on their bed, so gently, like he could be crushed by a breath of air.  Like Castiel is not that which crushes, in the Pit.  Castiel sighs softly and doesn't stir from where he is lain.  Dean's heart is full, looking down at him.  “What do you need, Cas?”  He asks, voice still as soft as if he were trying to hide it from the demons.  Whatever it is, Dean will give it to him.  Anything.  Anything at all.  His heart from his chest, if Castiel asks him for it; the wings from his back.  A siege on Heaven. Dominion over Earth.  A halo, a star, the sun, the sea.  Anything.

Castiel slits his eyes.  He holds one arm out, weakly, just only off of the bed.  “Dean.”  His voice is still wrecked from screaming.  His mind is still floating, high above his body, untethered, adrift among the stars and only rising higher.  

Dean pets back Castiel's wild hair and holds the back of his hand to Castiel's forehead, as if he didn't know why Castiel's skin is feverish and flushed.  “I gotta take care of you first, Cas.  I promised.  Remember?  Gotta show you.”   _How beautiful you are, how perfect.  How much I love you.  How much it means._ “Let me get you something, some water, something to eat.  Lemme take care of your body.” _Because that is how I know how to love you._ He kisses at Castiel's shoulder _.  Because you have given it to me and it is everything I have ever wanted and I am so, so grateful._

Castiel listlessly brushes Dean's hand away, and reaches out with both arms, now. “Dean.  You.” Up among the stars he is so free and light.  He is not coming down.  He doesn't want to.  But he has to look down so far, to see Dean.  That is not right.  He wants Dean to float with him, wrapped around him.  Then he will be perfect.  He smiles.  Perfect, with Dean.  

“Lemme just clean you up fi--”

Castiel whines.  Why is Dean not with him yet?  There is enough room, in the sky.  It is too cold, without him.  “Cold.  Magic.  Dean.  You.  Now.”

Castiel-in-the-stars remembers when Dean cleaned him, before, and it makes his chest feel warm, down in his body.  He felt so safe then, cared for.  He wants to experience that again.  He wants Dean to tear him apart, and Dean to put him back together fresh and whole.  But not right now.  Now he is so light and so free and the only thing he wants, the only thing, is Dean holding him close, pressed against him, petting him with gentle hands and whispering “Angel,” in his ear.  “Please?”  His arms are still weakly off the bed, and he tilts his head at Dean, and opens his eyes wide.  Dean loves him.  Dean will give him what he wants.  Dean will float among the stars with him, maybe forever.  He smiles.  “Dean.  Stars.  Forever.”

Dean smiles back at him.  He is so beautiful, when he smiles.  It gives Castiel the energy to lift his arms just an inch more, in his entreaty.

“You floating, Cas?” He can tell by Cas’ glassy eyes and one word sentences and how loosely his body draped over the back of the throne and how heavy he lay in his arms.  He can tell that Castiel is mind fucked and high and doesn't want to come down, he wants Dean to rise with him.  Dean wants that, too, because he wants to be with Castiel, always.  Give him everything he wants, always.  So he gives in and uses his magic to clean their skins, and leave them dry and soft and fresh as when they were new born in these bodies.  He leans over to kiss at Castiel's forehead, but as he slides in behind Castiel, wrapping an arm around his waist to draw him in and planting another kiss at the nape of his neck, he also manifests a tall glass of ice cold water.  It immediately starts to bead, in the warmth of the Pit.  Next to it he places a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  Grape jelly, neon purple and made with zero grapes, but Castiel's favorite.  Both of these right in Castiel's line of sight.

Castiel ignores them.  Instead, he hums in contentment that Dean is no longer resisting him and runs his hands warmly over Dean's forearms, where they wrap around his stomach.  “Yes, Dean.  Floating.  Can you see the stars?”

Dean kisses at Castiel's shoulder blade, the top of his spine.   He hums, too.  “No, Angel.  Tell me about the stars.”

“I was born a star, did you know?”  

“No, I… no, I didn't.”  Dean has pride, awe, in his voice.  His lips brush the knob of Castiel's shoulder, the soft ends of his hair.  “Are all the angels stars, when they are born?”

“Not all, only some.  Some are born diamonds, or pearls.  Some are a mountain range, or a forest, or a desert.  Some are animals, fierce and proud in our Father’s grace; birds on the wing, wolves on the hunt.  Gabriel was a lion, golden eyes and golden mane, I remember him.”

“But you were a star.”

“I was a star.”

“Beautiful.”

“It's quiet in the heavens, perfectly quiet, because of the vacuum.  That would make it cold, too, but not when you are a star.  Then, you are on fire.”

“You on fire now, Cas?”  Dean asks, gentle nonsense.

“I burned with the light of the Father for millions of years, there, in the heavens.  I saw so much; the birth of suns, and their deaths, meteors streaking by me like fireworks.”  

“Why'd you come down?”  Dean wonders.  That sounds great.  Safe from humans and demons and angels and their bullshit, just on fire and wheeling through the night sky, forever.  Maybe Castiel should have become a star again, instead of Falling with him.

“I saw you.”

“What?  That's not possible, Cas, the nearest stars are, what, a billion miles away?  You couldn't have…”. He trails off, trying to think it through.

“Didn't matter.  That's how bright you were.  I could have been on the other side of the universe, and I would have seen you.”  He wraps Dean's arms more tightly around him.

“And you came for me.”

Castiel turns, so he can look Dean in the eyes.  “I will always come for you.”  And he kisses Dean softly on the lips.  “Always.”  And then he turns back around, squeezes Dean's arms, and hums.  “Float with me, Dean.”  These topics are too heavy, they are weighing him down and that is not what he wants.

Dean kisses the nape of his neck again, a little unsteady from what Castiel has just said, but willing to let it pass.  “‘Course, Cas.  Show me the stars.”

“‘Dean’, they are all named ‘Dean’.”

“Pretty sure that's not true, Cas.”

“They are all named Dean and they all love me and that is why I am not cold, up here in the sky.”

Dean keeps kissing Castiel's neck, and shoulders.  “Do they tell you how beautiful you are?  Do they tell you over and over?”  If there are a million stars, telling Castiel this, it is not enough.

Castiel smiles beatifically.  “They do.  They tell me I am their angel.  They don't have to say it, it is in how they twinkle, in the dark.”

“Angel,” Dean breathes warmly on Castiel's neck.

“Yes, that is how they twinkle, just for me.”  He sounds almost a tiny bit smug.

“Just for you.”  Dean finds Castiel's hands, where they rest on his arms, and laces their fingers together.  “Do they tell you, ‘Forever’?”

“They tell me ‘Forever.’  They tell me ‘Always, Anything.’  They tell me every, perfect, thing.  They take such good care of me.”  A tear leaks down from the corner of Castiel’s eye. “I love them so much, Dean.  I love them so, so much.  Do you think they understand?  Do you think they know?  What if they don’t know?”

“They understand, Cas.  They know.”  Tears are leaking from Dean's eyes, too.  “I know they do, I promise you, they do.  And I think all they want, all they want in the world, is to show you.  But they're up there and I'm down here, so can I?  Will you let me show you?”

Castiel hums and smiles with his teeth showing and his eyes shut.  “You always show me.”  He squeezes Dean’s hands where they are twined with his own.  

Dean turns him, gently, so they are face to face, chests pressed together.  He takes Castiel's jaw in careful hands, and when Castiel opens his eyes to the touch Dean’s breath catches.  God, Castiel's eyes are so beautiful.  There will never come a time, he will never be too numbed by the ugliness of Hell, when they don't pierce straight through him.  And now, now they are so wide and blue and wet with tears, and they look at him with such longing.  He thinks that that longing is echoed back in his own eyes, he hopes it is.  He knows his eyes are wet, at least; he can feel the moisture gathering on his lids.  

The promise isn't gripping him, not right now, but he stares into Castiel's eyes anyway.  They have always stared at each other, they have always seen more in each other's eyes than anyone else had ever been able to.  From the first moment they met.  Dean shivers when he remembers Castiel's eyes that night, in the barn; he was wearing a human body but there is no way Dean could ever have mistaken him for human, with those eyes.  They had been like jewels, like the deepest pools, like the night sky in Kansas.  Dean had put himself to sleep a lot of nights after that trying to think of what they were like.  Like an angry sea.  Like the shock you see if you put your finger too close to a light socket.  Like the hottest part of the flame.  He stares into them now and he still doesn't think he's ever gotten it right.  Maybe because there's just nothing to compare them to.  Nothing in Hell, that's for sure.  Nothing in Heaven, either from what he has seen.  Though he has never seen his own Heaven.  Probably never will.  This is probably as close as he will ever get.  He pulls his Heaven closer to him.

“Cas,” he breathes, and lets his thumbs caress at Castiel's cheekbones, under his eyes.  “Always gonna show you.  Always gonna keep you safe.  I promise.”   _I love you.  God, I love you._ “Always gonna be right here, with you.”   

Cas’ arms circle around Dean's waist and Castiel rests his head on Dean's chest.  “Then don't let go.”  

Dean pulls Castiel in closer.  “Never.”

Now Castiel is perfect, floating in the stars.  


\---Past---

 

Dean hurts.  He hurts.  His fingers are cracked and bleeding, because he is cutting them as he tries to dig down through the corner of his cell with his fingernails.  They tear off and heal and tear off again.  It hurts, it hurts over and over, it hurts every time.  But it hurts less than doing nothing.  He has to get to Castiel.  He has to at least get closer.  His blood is burning him.  He doesn’t know how long it has been since Sam left him, after the phone call, it seems like it has been forever.  Has it been hours?  Days?  Weeks?  And how long has it been in Hell?  A month, a Year?  How long has Castiel been cold, and alone?  He doesn't know.  He doesn’t know and he can’t think about it, because it hurts too much, it spikes through his brain and makes his vision black.  

The hole he is scraping doesn't grow very fast, to help him keep the time.  His fingers don’t tell him either, they heal too fast, the wounds don't tell him how long he has been digging.  He doesn't sleep, he can't, even squeezed into his corner as deep as he will go his blood boils him from the inside out.  So the days and nights aren't separated by sleep and they can't be separated by light and dark, sun and stars, because there are no windows in his cell.

He doesn’t understand why Sam doesn’t care that he is bleeding and hurting and burning in the corner of the dungeon.  Sam really must not believe that they are brothers, anymore.  To let this go on, unchecked.  

He doesn’t understand anything other than that he needs to get to Castiel.  His vision is starting to shimmer oilily, like the cell is a mirage.  Worst mirage ever.

He pries a chunk of mortar out of the floor with ruined fingers and scrapes new wounds on the skin pushing them in to the hole left behind.  It gets him an inch closer to Castiel.  His vision clears, though he knows it will just be for a minute.  He needs to use it.  He needs a plan.  Cringing in a corner and digging up a stone floor with his fingernails is not a plan.  He needs a better plan.  He needs to get out.  

He doesn’t think he will die, first because he can’t and second because that would not fulfill the promise.  So he's not sure what can happen, that is worse than this, but he's sure it isn't good.  And not being able to imagine anything worse has never saved him before. “Sammy,” he bangs his bloody hand on the ground.  “Goddammit Sammy,”

“What’s wrong with you?”  Sam’s voice.  He didn’t even know that Sam was there.  How long has he been standing there, on the other side of the door, looking concerned?  Maybe he cares, after all.

“Gotta get to Castiel,” Dean replies, sounding pathetic.  “Sammy, you don’t understand.  I promised.  I promised with my _blood_.  If I can’t get to him… bad things are gonna happen Sammy.  Look at me, look at how fucked up I am, and this is just the start of it.  It's only gonna get worse, spread away from me, to the bunker, to you, if it's not fulfilled.  You gotta let me go to him.”

Sam doesn't say anything, so Dean turns to look at him, to try and read his face and gauge whether he is gaining any sympathy.  But Sam's not there when he turns.  Maybe he was never there, maybe Dean hallucinated him.  Maybe he was there but it took Dean a century of bleeding and hurting to turn his head and Sam went away before he finished, forgot him, died, passed on with no one to salt his body for the burial.  He doesn't know.  Could be real, could be illusion, he doesn’t know.

For the hundredth time he tries to spread his wings and travel to Castiel, and for the hundredth time he fails.  The summoning is still holding him here, earthbound and helpless in his cold cell.  He slams his bleeding hand against the floor so hard that the bones break, crying in frustration.  He can’t even feel the breaking, over the rush of his blood.  They heal immediately anyway.  They don’t hurt enough to distract him from the pain of the promise.

He needs a plan.  Just a plan, just any idea, no matter how pathetic, that he can hold on to and work on to try to get out of here.  Back to Cas.  But he doesn’t have anything to make a plan with.  He looks around the cell again, for something, anything, an iron fixture, a piece of rope, a hairpin, the secret stash of the tooth fairy, fucking _anything,_ but there’s still nothing there.  Nothing but stone and his blood.  It’s come to this, not for the first time, that all he has is his blood.

His blood though… he forces his raw fingers into the hole left behind by the mortar he pulled out.  Something about his blood… He needs clarity, just a minute of clarity, just a minute where it doesn’t hurt so much to think this through.  He inches his fingers deeper.  The skin comes off, up to the knuckle, but the haze around his brain clears just a little.  

Just enough to remember, that his blood must be pretty powerful, now.  Now that he is a Knight of Hell.  Now that he carries the Mark of one of the first ones.  He can use it.  He can draw with it.  There are a lot of spells he might cast, with blood as powerful as his own.

He doesn’t waste time, he can’t, he doesn't want to lose what clarity the skin on his fingers has bought him.  

First, he tries to banish himself.  He draws the sigil out there, with his blood, his right hand sketching rapidly while his left is still shoved in the crack.  He draws it out there on the floor next to him.  When he slaps his hand down onto it to activate it, it doesn’t work, he doesn't go anywhere, let alone to the edges of creation.  He doesn't move a damned inch.  It just hurts him, adds a feeling like he is being torn apart to the burning in his blood.  It feels like an iron hand is around his heart trying to hold him in place while another hand, of ice, is knived into his spine and is trying to rip him away.  But he doesn’t go anywhere.  He grits his teeth and tries to bear it, hoping that maybe the banishment, fresh and new and powerful in his blood, will win out over the older summoning, but it doesn’t, the two forces just keep shearing him in opposite directions.  He thinks if he were a normal demon this would kill him, and he tries to remember that, to tell Sam, to tell all the hunters, to write down somewhere for the Men of Letters, as he scratches a fingernail through the banishment sigil to break it.  

Next he decides instead of banishment, he will do a summoning of his own.  He is the Master, isn’t he?  Then, he will summon some of the demons of the Pit that call him Lord.  He knows that, Master or not, they would just as soon sink their claws into him as help him, but maybe Sam will see them and come to kill them.  Or save his brother’s body, from them.  Maybe they will be a distraction.  Maybe he will be able to drag himself out the door of the cell while Sam is fighting them, and maybe then, outside of whatever demon-depowering wards are on this cell in addition to the ineffectual devil’s trap, he will be able to travel.  Maybe, maybe.  It’s a terrible plan.  But it’s better than lying in a corner scraping at the floor; almost anything would be, and it’s all he’s got.

How many times has he had to say that, to himself?  That it’s a terrible plan, but that it’s all he’s got?  It's never stopped him before, and it doesn't stop him now.  How many of Hell’s creatures have been ended, by Dean Winchester’s terrible plans?  How many of Heaven’s?  And of Purgatory’s, Christ, “Find the Angel.”  Barely even a plan at all, but how many of them had fallen before him?  Before he escaped?  Carrying one of the damned with him?

And he did find the angel.   

He will find him again.  He grits his teeth.  He _will_.  He draws the first name of those he would summon, Baal, beneath the broken banishment.  The pressure on his brain, the vise wracking him with a headache, starts to ease, and he wonders if that means this is going to work, so he keeps drawing.  He draws out Isis and Osiris, bitch twins that tried to flay him once, in Ohio.  Shaitan and Pan and Fenris, who hates to be mistaken for a Hellhound, ugh, cocky bastard, always Ragnarok this and Allfather that, whatever the fuck that means.  He at least probably won't attack Dean right away; last time they met Fenris had growled out that he would be the one to chase Dean to Valhalla--Dean thinks that may have been some kind of fucked up compliment, or fuck, even a come on-- and there's not much room for the chase in this cell.  

He draws Persephone and Hades and Hecate.  A fucked up threesome if he's ever met one. They might be too busy bickering amongst themselves about pomegranates or some shit to pay Dean any mind.  He hopes.  When he starts to draw out Ixion, the tenth name, he hears the heavy door out of the dungeon swing open and Sam come running down the stairs.

“What are you trying to do?  Are you crazy?”  Sam yells, banging his forearm against the bars of the cell window.  “Calling all of them here?”

“I told you Sam, I gotta get out of here, gotta get back to Cas.  If you won’t help me, I’ll summon someone who will, my minions, in Hell.  And you can kill them, or you can try, and I’ll keep summoning them until this room is so full of corpses that I can’t fit any more, and when you take me out to move me I will poof the fuck out of here and back to Cas.”  

“It won’t work, you won’t be able to summon them, the bunker’s warded,” Sam says, but he looks afraid, and his eyes skitter back and forth over all the names on the floor too fast, too attentive.  Just one of those names would be more than almost anyone could handle.  Just one of them.  Does he have the wolf’s bane to banish Fenris?  The lute for Persephone?  The ivory for Hecate?    

“You summoned me, here, and I’m worse than any of them, I’m at the top of the fucking heap.”

“I live here.  I can will a summoning through the wards.”

“I live here too, Sammy, or I did.  You forget that?  You burn any sage in my room to clear me out?  You burn enough?”  

Sam swallows, and it’s clear that he didn’t.  “I’m a human.  I don’t know what you are, but you’re not Dean.  You’re not my brother.  It won’t work.  You won’t be able to summon anything through the wards.”

“You willing to risk it?  You want all 10 of these motherfuckers in here with me?  You think this body will survive that, in here with them, no weapons, half dead, half bled out, already?  You think you’ll ever be able to get your brother back, then?  You think they’ll stop with me?  You want all 10 of them locked in the bunker with _you_?”  He finishes drawing ‘Ixion’, and raises up his hand.  

“Wait, don’t--” Sam yells at him.  But it is too late.  Dean slams his hands down.

 

\---Present---

 

Castiel wakes from a perfect dream, of stars, and warmth, and peace, and Dean, with his head still rested on Dean’s chest.  He can hear Dean’s heartbeat.  There is enough left of human in the demon that the heart still beats, and Castiel is thankful for that.  He listens to its steady thump and it soothes him, like the tide coming in.  

The songs of the angels used to soothe him, when he was among the Host, but not like this.  They would drive out all his doubts, his fears.  They would make his mind feel white, and airy, and crystal clear, almost too clear, so clear that it was sharp with edges like knives.  Dean’s heart beating underneath his ear doesn't cut at him like that; it makes him feel real, warm, safe. With every beat, he hears that Dean has chosen him, and allowed him to be this close.  With every silence between, he stays close, and he chooses Dean back.  “I love you,” he whispers to Dean's heart.  He tries not to say it too loud, he tries not to move his mouth too much, so Dean will stay asleep.  So he can lay here pressed against Dean, safe in the circle of his arms, for a while longer.  Dean has never slept well, or slept enough, and Castiel would give him this, a few minutes more of rest.  Castiel would give him anything.

He had many powers as an angel, many that he does not have now even though Dean shares power with him, because Dean’s power is of fire, and the Pit and is unlike the grace of Heaven.  He used to have powers of healing and ease, and those are not the powers of Hell.  But even with the powers of an angel, he could not always soothe Dean's sleep, though he wanted to.  And now, Fallen, he can; he can soothe him just with a touch.  He would have Fallen sooner, if he had known, that this were possible.  He would have Fallen in an instant and never looked back, to be this close to Dean.  Though it pained him greatly, he is glad that he did Fall, and gain this power.

He watched over Dean, many nights, as an angel.

Dean’s body was always restless, in those nights.  Motel mattresses never chosen for comfort would dig and creak and sag under him, boiled, bleached sheets would itch and chafe.  Broken bones, pierced skin, old scars, would all confront him and hurt him and hold him back from sleep.

Dean’s mind, too, would be restless.  With fear of what the morning would bring: evil, danger, death, destruction.  With fear of failure, and betrayal.  With guilt for wrongs done in the past, real and imagined.  With the pressure of being one man, just one man, broken and imperfect and responsible for saving the whole of the world.     

And if he managed to overcome restless mind and restless body, his dreams would not comfort him.  They would be full of fire and sulfur, darkness and betrayal and pain and the Pit.  Castiel sometimes the betrayer, the worst betrayer of all, to his great shame.  Body, mind, dreams, Dean never slept well.  His sleep never restored him, as it should have.

Castiel watched over him, and did for him what he could.  For Dean’s body, he would expel wisps of grace, dim and fragile in the night’s dark.  He would not heal Dean completely, because if he did Dean would wake surly and resentful, and tell Cas that he should not waste his grace on his worthless bones, since they were just going to get broke again anyway.  As if that could ever be a waste.  As if there was any cause on Heaven or Earth Castiel would rather expend his grace on than healing Dean’s weary body.  

There was little he could do for Dean’s mind.  Often, he thought that maybe if he could get Dean to talk to him, talk about what troubled him, so that he could offer understanding, and forgiveness… but when he mentioned this to Sam, Sam pursed his lips and shook his head, and Castiel didn’t pursue it further.  

But his dreams… his dreams.  Castiel could enter his dreams, wreathed in light, and save him from what tormented him.  Dreams that started with sour fear and a never-ending chase _would_ end, and Dean would be able to drift away on a cloud of light until morning.  

Once Dean dreamed that he battled the Leviathan.  It was not in a vessel in the dream, it was a dark, oily cloud that swirled and seeped and pressed him backwards, ever backwards.  Behind him was a river, and he feared being submerged in its cold waters more than he feared the Leviathan, and so he fought it fiercely.  He shot at it, and when his gun ran out of bullets he slashed at it with a knife, and when it knocked his knife away he fought it with his hands.  He refused to take the final step into the water though it sliced his skin and gnashed its teeth at him and broke his back.  He lay broken on the muddy bank of the river, crying in frustration and fear but not yielding his ground even when the Leviathan set upon him with long teeth, and mangled and chewed his flesh.  It hurt him, it hurt him so much, and in the dream he knew that the pain could end if he would just give in, and wade into the water of the river, but he did not, he would not.  He choked on his own tears, he watched himself be devoured, but he did not break before the Leviathan.

Then Castiel entered the dream.  Armored in Heaven and beautiful in his glory, he strode up out of the water with a hand held out in front of him, radiant with the light of the Father.  Wreathed in flame, he stood before the Leviathan, unafraid, and its eyes were blinded by his brightness, and its flesh was burned by his light.  It dropped Dean’s body like a broken doll and fled.  

“Cas?”  Dean asked then, voice quiet and weak, eyes too seared by Castiel's light to trust what he saw.  

“Yes, Dean.  Be still,” Cas replied, voice sounding like a thousand voices, like it could shatter glass again the way it did when he first rose Dean from the Pit.  And he knelt by Dean, and laid mailed hands on him, and his light and warmth healed the cuts and bites of the Leviathan, cleansed the blood and the bile and made Dean new again.  

“You came back.”  

“Yes, Dean.  I’m here now.  I’ll watch over you.  Rest, now.  You’re safe.”  And Castiel sat with him there on the river bank until the sun rose in the morning, holding Dean’s head in his lap and smoothing his hair gently with armored hands.  

Another time Dean dreamed of a ferris wheel.  Castiel thought that it was a happy dream at first, a memory, perhaps, of a time before Dean’s life was defined by darkness.  But when Dean got to the front of the line for the ride, he did not want to get on, and he screamed against his body when it acted against him and boarded.  The carriage started to rise up, and up, and up, and it seemed there was no apex to this ride, that Dean would just rise and rise forever, and he was terrified, up in the sky, alone, cold and with nothing to hold on to as the carriage shook and trembled beneath him.  

Castiel appeared then on the bench next to him, in his suit and trenchcoat, and placed his hand on Dean’s left shoulder.  Dean startled, and then looked at him.  “Cas?”  

“Yes, Dean.  It’s me.  You’re safe.  I’m here with you.”  Though this same revelation had comforted Dean greatly in the dream with the Leviathan, here on the ferris wheel it seemed to only make him more afraid, and his body became agitated, his hand smoothing up and down his leg.  

Castiel tilted his head.  “Why are you afraid?  There is no need.  I'm here.”  

Dean’s eyes strayed from Castiel’s eyes down to his lips, and then immediately back up, terrified.  Then the carriage started to plummet.

For a second they fell, free, then Castiel put his arms around Dean and spread his wings, and they floated, still.  “You’re safe, Dean.” Castiel repeated, his arms wrapped around Dean’s back and his wings rising and falling steadily behind him.  “You’re always safe, with me.”  

Dean had exhaled, rigid body relaxing slightly, and rested his head against Castiel’s shoulder, strangely almost as afraid to do this as he had been to step onto the ferris wheel.  “Rest now.  I’ll watch over you.”  Castiel stroked a gentle hand up and down Dean’s back, trying to calm him.  “Rest, Dean,” and slowly, slowly, Dean’s body relaxed into Castiel’s and into rest.  

In another dream, Dean stood at the entrance to the bunker, and it was dark and cold behind him, sharp and dangerous, and there was something he wanted, so badly, so, so, badly, out there on the outside, but he could not move towards it.  He body would not obey him, he was sealed to the ground like stone, his limbs too heavy and too stupid to move.  He tried to call out to it, whatever it was that he wanted with his whole heart, but his voice wouldn’t heed him either, and he could only produce a stricken wheeze.  Tears formed in his eyes from the frustration, from the anger, the need, the fear of what was behind him, but he couldn’t move, he couldn’t.

It bit into him, the monster behind him in the dark, it turned his back to ribbons and weighed down his shirt with cold blood.  Somewhere inside was Sam, and the monster had him, too; Dean could hear him crying for Dean to save him.  Behind him, only pain, and in front of him everything he had always wanted if only he could take just one step forward, over the threshold, and still he _couldn’t_.

Castiel appeared to him in glory, again, and shone his light back into the darkness, and lifted Dean over the threshold with radiant wings, the power that held him stationary broken with a thought.  Castiel held Dean to him close, bobbing gently in the air just a few inches off the ground, and ran hands bright with the power of Heaven over Dean’s back to heal him there.  

Dean collapsed against him, sobbing unashamedly now that his voice was returned to him.  “Cas,” he cried, trying to find a place on smooth armor, polished to a shine, where he could hold on to Castiel with shaking hands.  “I couldn’t leave, I _couldn’t,_ ” he cried, and Castiel held him closer.  “It had Sammy, please, you have to understand, I wanted to leave, but it had Sam, I _couldn’t_.”  

“Ssshhhh, Dean.  It’s ok.  I’m here now.  You’re safe.  I’ve got you.  It can’t hurt you anymore, whatever it was.  It can’t hurt Sam either.  I’m here.”

But Dean didn’t stop crying.  “I’m sorry, Cas.  So sorry.  You’ve gotta believe me.”

Castiel held Dean’s head against his chest with a strong hand, and pressed his face down into Dean’s hair, close as he dared.  “I forgive you, Dean.”  He didn’t know for what, but that was a power given to him by the Father, the power of judgement and forgiveness, and no one was more deserving of it than Dean.  “I forgive you.”        

In so many dreams Castiel appeared to Dean; armored and golden, on fire in his true form or rumpled in his suit and trenchcoat, he appeared.  He saved Dean from the Leviathan and from Lucifer, from the Darkness and from Abaddon and the angels; he saved him from Azazel and his drunken father and from Sam’s cries.  He saved Dean from guilt and from fear; he saved him from betrayal and lies and disappointment.  He saved Dean over and over again, without fail, every time Dean thrashed in his sleep.  And Dean never knew, and Castiel never told him, that Castiel was real, in those dreams.  That he did forgive Dean.  That he did save Dean.  That he always would.  

Dean sleeps much better now, in Hell.  His body rests on memory foam, and silk, with Castiel wrapped warm around him.  Sometimes his mind is full of violence, and throbs with the anger of the Mark, but more often it is clouded with softness; with kisses and touches and Castiel murmuring in his ear that he is beautiful.  He eases into sleep that is dreamless, or where Castiels-of-his-dreams caress him and cling to him and whisper ‘I love you,” while true Castiel holds him close.  And when his dreams are ugly, when they are of pain and the red mud, he wakes, every time, to Castiel’s voice telling him, sure and strong, “Dean.  It’s ok.  You’re safe.  I’m here.  I’m here with you, Dean.”

Castiel doesn’t have the power of Heaven anymore, ancient and infinite and holy and fearsome.  But he has his hands, and his lips, and these are what he uses to save Dean, now.  And he does save him.  He always will.  Every time.  Forever.  

So as he whispers ‘I love you,’ again, into Dean’s heart, he is quiet, because he wants to hold Dean, and watch him, and let him rest.  Because this is how he saves Dean, now.  

 

\---Past---

 

Many things happen at once.

Dean’s hand slices downward, towards the ten names he has drawn.

Sam yells out, “Dean, no!” and staggers back away from the door.

Before Dean's hand even lands, the ground in his cell splits open.  He pulls back, in surprise, leaving his demons unsummoned.

For a second, nothing comes out of the crack in the floor but a light.  A light that is familiar somehow, and comforting to Dean.  A light that makes him think that everything is going to be ok.  Just for that one second.

Then Hell breaks loose.  A swarm of demons come boiling up out of the crack, terrified, as if they are being whipped by something even worse than they are from behind.  They ignore Dean completely.  Instead they start pounding on the door, thrusting spears through it to try to get to Sam and crashing axes against it to try and break it down.  To get out, it seems, is their goal.  Away from what is driving them.  Sam seems only secondary to them, incidental; their primary goal is clearly to get out of the cell.  To _escape._

Sam stumbles back.  He's not carrying a weapon, he doesn't, in the bunker, so he breaks up the stairs.  To look for something he can use to fight the horde now in his basement or to flee, Dean doesn't know, and Sam doesn't say.  Sam probably could not see that Dean never completed his summoning, from his vantage behind the door, and probably thinks that these demons have been summoned by the creature wearing his brother to kill him.   _Great,_ Dean thinks, _just great.  How am I gonna explain this?  I didn't summon those demons, Sammy, they were just a completely unrelated horde that just happened to appear exactly at the moment I almost summoned an entirely different horde out of abject coincidence._ Yeah, right.  This is not going to go over well.

Dean slowly fades back towards the corner farthest from the door, trying to make himself small and unobtrusive and as un-demon-bait-like as possible.  It doesn't seem to matter what he does, though, because they still completely ignore him, clawing and biting and scratching at each other to get closer to the exit, farther away from whatever has driven them here.  

Back in his corner, watching, analyzing, trying to turn this sudden invasion to his advantage, the only thing Dean can think of that would make demons afraid like that is Lucifer.  But as far as he knows, Lucifer is still in his cage.  His stomach drops out from under him, then, when he wonders if maybe, somehow, the promise reached out and freed him.  And now he is coming, coming for Sam.  Coming again to undo so much of what Dean and Sam have fought for.  He swallows down a sour, bitter bile that has risen in the back of his throat.  He should have known, he tells himself.  Should have known that he could never have something as beautiful and true and perfect as Castiel without paying some apocalyptically bad price for it.

Then the light knifing up through the crack in the floor swells, and becomes so bright it lights up the whole cell, and Dean it casts Dean back from guilt, and from fear.  Because now he recognizes this light, and understands all at once why it comforted him when he first saw it, and it snuffs out the ugliness growing in his gut in an instant and replaces it with brightness.

Because he knows the color of this light, though he has spent night after night trying to describe it and has never been able to find the words.  The light is blue.  It is the color of Castiel's eyes.  And it keeps growing, swelling and brightening until it is almost blinding in the darkness of the cell.  

And then Castiel appears, and Dean _is_ blinded and can barely breathe at the sight of him.  He appears, radiating light around him like flame, carrying a sword that is on fire, too, long and heavy and deadly sharp.  He appears in armor, gleaming and with the signs of Heaven gilt and shining on his chest.  He appears and his eyes are so bright they burn straight through Dean, but even so he cannot look away.  He understands why the demons fled from this creature, of light and wrath and purity.  He understands why this was the one, that was sent to find him in Hell.  He understands that this is a warrior of Heaven and of the light, fierce and absolute and beautiful as the sun.  He wants to fall to his knees himself, in praise and submission, but he is too stunned to even move.  “Cas,” he creaks out from his corner, voice raw and broken.

“Dean,” Castiel replies, seeing where he is shrunken in his corner now for the first time.  He strides to Dean, cape flowing out behind him, fiery aura surrounding him, blinding.  When he reaches the corner he takes Dean in an embrace, crushing him against the plate of his armor, clapping gauntleted hands against his back.  “I came for you.”

“You came for me,” Dean repeats, shell-shocked, arms coming up to hold Castiel weakly, feeling seared by Castiel's light but not caring.  “You…”. He can't believe it.  That this creature of awe and light would come for him, him, bloody and hunched in the dark, evil and marked by evil.  He tries again.  “You…”

“Always,” Castiel says.  “I promised you, too, Dean.   _Always.”_

The burning that has been scarring Dean's blood recedes completely and is replaced by a soaring joy, to hear the promise repeated on Castiel's lips.  Dean collapses in his arms.  “Always.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please take a nice, long, chapter packed with porn and (ew) plot just in time for the holidays. May it bring you some pleasure on your trip home, or during the cold nights, or while you are hiding from your family. I think this is my favorite one so far. Here, we see what Dean was up to while he and Cas were separated... but don't worry, we'll see Cas' side of it in the next chapter. 
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: a pretty intense (entirely consensual) scene with large-scale demon exhibitionism for Dean and Cas towards the start. Cas receives significant aftercare afterwards.
> 
> You can follow me on tumblr @ brainheartpizza (https://www.tumblr.com/blog/brainheartpizza). I post (basically unedited) excerpts in between AO3 updates.


	6. Armor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If Dean would let him Castiel would kneel before him and wrap him entirely in plate of gold at all times, spell words of protection over him in blood, and light, that would melt blades raised against him, blind his enemies, make them weak. Dean shakes his head, thinking about it. Who is he, to be worth even the least of that? He’s just Dean.

 

 _I was thinking all about him,_  
_Burning with rage and desire,_  
_We were spinning in the darkness,_  
_And the earth was on fire._  
_He could take it back,_  
_He might take it back, someday._  
_\--_ Take It Back, Pink Floyd  
  
\---Present---

Cas’ dreams were perfect:  of stars and light and love and Dean with him, forever.  Dean's dreams are not.  He still feels too much of _ if Sam had,  _ and  _ I might have,  _ and  _ I could have.   _ He could have lost Castiel.  He could have lost the perfect, fierce, angel who made his blood run hot, and wild.  He could have lost the sweet, soft, angel that only wanted to float with him, in the stars.  He  _ could have.   _ He  _ almost.   _ What they shared yesterday, the heat and the violence and the softness; that did not settle the fears that Sam's Name on Castiel's arm had risen, like a cloud of dust on the air.  It had made them worse; a tornado.  It had made manifest to him what he could have lost.

So his dreams were dark, and fearful.  He dreamt of Castiel, infested with Leviathan, wading out into that reservoir to die, to implode into a black, ugly stain that was no longer Castiel.  He dreamt it over and over, Castiel wading out, back turned to Dean, arms reached forward for balance, coat floating out behind him.  Over and over, and Castiel ended, just ended, became a dark cloud in a silver pool and then nothing, just nothing, while all Dean could do was watch.  He tried, he tried so hard, to call out, to wade into the water after Castiel, but in the dream he was motionless, voiceless, powerless.  His fingernails dug into the palms of his hands until they bled, fat, red droplets plopping heavily on the muddy ground.  But he couldn't stop what he was watching.  It had already come to pass.

True-Castiel feels Dean's fear, the pain of his dream, and wraps around him tighter, and strokes gentle fingers in his hair, and whispers,  _ Dean.  Dean.  Come back to me _ in his ear.  True-Castiel saves him, from the past, from his self.  This time, and always.  This is the reason Dean wakes slowly, calmly, instead of gasping and shooting straight up off the bed.  He wakes with Castiel pillowed against his chest, gazing up at him adoringly.  A soft, sweet weight against his body.  Dean breathes, and sinks down underneath it.  The memories of dream-Castiel, walking away from him, are still there, tugging on his heart, and he holds true-Castiel tight, anchoring himself against that pull, and its pain.

“You still floating?”  Dean asks, his voice breathless.  “Or are you here with me?”  He ruffles Castiel's hair, and he sounds like he might be sad, so sad, if Castiel is not right there with him.  He sounds like his heart might break.    

“I’m here with you, Dean.  Always.”

The promise beats once through Dean’s blood, when Castiel says that, bright like gold.  “Good.”  Dean wraps his arms tighter around Castiel’s back and squeezes him closer.  He stares off into the distance, over Castiel’s shoulder.

“And where are  _ you _ ?  Where are we, here together?”  Castiel asks, nuzzling his stubble into Dean’s shoulder so Dean can feel him, burrowing his head in close to his neck.  He knows Dean's dreams were hard, and cold.

“I kept your coat, when the Leviathan got you,” Dean says.  This response doesn’t follow as an answer to Castiel’s question, but Castiel knows that it doesn’t come from nowhere.  He thinks Dean must still be upset about how he could have lost Cas to Sam’s mark, if his thoughts have gone to those memories.  Memories of when he  _ did _ lose Cas.  If only for awhile.  “I waded out into the cold where you… after you were gone, and I brought it back.  It was all that was left,” he says, almost defensively, clutching at Castiel.

“I know you did,” Cas keeps nuzzling, keeps his voice soft, and calm.  “You kept it and you gave it back to me.  It was in the trunk of the Impala, when you found me.”  

“It wasn’t always.  I didn’t always keep it there, I mean,” Dean says, still staring off into the distance, now stroking his fingers gently down Castiel’s shoulder.

“That’s OK, Dean, if you left it, I--”  Cas can feel that Dean is hurting, big, round, achy emotions pressing at his heart, pressing too hard, like a balloon about to burst.  He guesses that maybe Dean feels guilty:  for leaving his coat in the bunker, for leaving  _ him  _ behind, for taking other hunts, other jobs, when he thought Cas was dead.  

Dean shakes his head, a sharp, _No._ Something else, then _._ “No, Cas, I didn't leave it, not ever.  Not _ever._ I---” he pauses, trying to calm the wave emotions that is swelling over him, and think about how to tell this; he takes a deep breath before continuing.  Castiel waits through it, lacing their fingers together and kissing Dean's knuckles.

When Dean continues his breaths are even, but his voice trembles, just.  “I would take it in to my motel room with me, at night, when I was looking for you.” He pauses again, and when Cas looks up at him it seems like Dean might be about to cry.  “Cas, when I had to watch you go into that lake,” Dean chokes up, and his voice breaks.  They have never actually talked about this before, Dean and Cas.  Cas has always assumed what basically is the truth:  that his destruction by the Leviathan was painful for Dean, that he felt responsible, but that it was too difficult for him to put any of that to words.  That he could only try to tell it with his eyes, when he handed Castiel his coat back, after he had been Emmanuel.  Dean can tell Castiel so much, with his eyes.

But they are talking about it now.  Because of Sam, maybe.  Because the promise does not let them hide.  Dean wipes tears away from his eyes and clears his throat.  “Cas, it hurt.  It… it hurt real bad.  I thought I was never going to see you again, and I thought you had gone out thinking I hated you, that I didn’t get it, what you were trying to do.  I thought you were gonna go out drowned in a cold lake by a bunch of monsters, tearing you apart on the inside, thinking I didn’t… not knowing that I...”   _ That I loved you.  How much. _  He wipes at his eyes again.  “It hurt so bad.  But then… I started to get  _ used _ to it.  The pain.  It dulled inside me, it wasn’t sharp anymore.  I got  _ used  _ to it.” He sounds angry.  He  _ feels _ angry, hot and red, through the bond.  His hands go still and his body rigid.

“Oh, Dean,” Castiel's heart could break, for this man beside him.  Who could look at him, and see the demon?  He is too bright.  He shines.

Dean pays him no mind, and continues.  “That was even worse than the pain.  When it started to feel…  _ bearable.   _ It felt like I was betraying you all over again, when it started to hurt, just a little less.  How could I love you, and bear it that you died, like that?  Alone and in so much pain?  How could I just walk around, and live my life, when that had happened to you, my...Cas, my...angel.”  His voice is anguished, and he is still and stiff beneath Castiel.

“Dean--”  Dean's persona that he shows to the world is of a smooth, unbroken, masculinity, one that denies the existence of or need for an inner world.  But the emotional betrayals that he feels and the emotional punishments he lays on himself--like this one-- belie a great sensitivity, a level of empathy and insight that almost no one that meets him ever sees.  It's a different kind of beauty, from the dazzling one of his eyes and smile that he uses surgically to distract the world from the inside, and all that hurts there.  Castiel has always seen it, though.  Castiel has always seen right in to his soul.  It's why Dean was afraid of him, at first, Castiel has often thought:  because Castiel always, always, saw through Dean’s posturing and deflecting, like it wasn't even there.  This armor, that had protected Dean from so much in his life, never protected him from Castiel.  This is why Dean was terrified of him.  This is why, or is one reason why, he was, and is, the only one, for Dean.

Dean keeps talking, not really hearing Cas’ interjection, lost in the memory, staring off at the wall.  “So I started to keep it with me, all the time.  I would take it out of the trunk of the Impala and into my hotel rooms at night, so I wouldn’t forget.”  A sob breaks up the even, gruff, monotone Dean is telling this story with.  “I didn’t forget you, Cas.  Not even for a second.”  

“I know, Dean,” Cas replies quietly.  

“It would sit it there, across from me at the table, when I was researching.  Like you were sitting there, looking at me with sad eyes.  Sad because I let you down.  And it hurt, it hurt so much, to think you would be sad, if you were sitting there.  Because of me.  But that's why I kept it.  So it would hurt.  So I wouldn’t forget.”  He looks down at Cas, finally.  “I’m sorry I let you down Cas.  That I wasn't loyal, that I didn't stand beside you, the one time you asked.  So sorry.  But I didn't forget you, not ever, not for a  _ second _ .”

“Dean,”

Dean interrupts him again.  “Then there was one place, a real shit hole, it didn’t even have a table.  So I did my research on the bed.  And I set your coat there on the bed next to me.  And I fell asleep and it was there.  When I woke up in the morning, I was holding it, I was,”  Dean chokes up a little.  “I was holding onto it like it was the only thing keeping me alive.  The only thing that was keeping me from calling it quits, just finding a bottle and getting in my car and keeping my foot on the gas until it was all over and I could be done with all this bullshit and pain once and for all.  Get my eternal rest, you know.  Didn't I deserve that?”  He looks at Cas, and Cas looks back with wet eyes.   _ Yes, my love, you deserve that.  That and so much more.  And I am so sorry, so sorry that you will most likely never get it.   _ A tear leaks from Castiel's eye, but he doesn't look away.  

“Just to  _ rest,” _ Dean continues, “and not have everything be blood and pain and failure.  What was the point anyway, of fighting anymore; you were gone, it was my fault, you thought I hated you, you didn’t know.  The Leviathan were sprung and it was only a matter of time.”  Dean hiccups.  “And I would get to thinkin’ like that and I'd… I'd…”.

Castiel waits and traces his fingers up and down Dean's arm, just a touch, just so Dean can't forget he is there. And he listens.  

When Dean continues it’s in a whisper, and his hand is rubbing his face underneath his mouth.  “Then after that first time in that shithole I had it every night, there with me.  Under my head like a pillow.  Or held up close to my chest.  I never wore it though.  It felt like, i dunno, if I wore it, then there wasn’t any room there for you, anymore.  I never wore it but I held on to it for my life.  I mean that, Cas, for my life, it was..” he covers his face with his hands and sniffs.  When he removes them, he looks down at Cas again with wet, red, eyes.  “And I never forgot you Cas, I swear it. Never.  Not for one second.  Awake or asleep, unconscious or dreaming.  NEVER.  I promise.”   _ Thrum. _

“Dean, I know.  I--” Cas does know, he did before Dean told him any of this, and he thinks maybe if he could explain, if Dean understood, it could relieve him of some of this guilt and pain that he has been carrying around, real and heavy as Cas’ coat.

But Dean is lost in reverie.  “It was so soft.  Softer than any of the pillows in any of the rat traps that I ever stayed in, anyway.  And it smelled like you, at first.  I never realized that I knew what you smelled like until I was holding that stupid coat up, trying to breathe you in, because I missed you so goddamn much.”

Castiel’s breath catches at this, and his eyes rim with tears.   _ Dean.  Oh, Dean.   _ “Dean.   _ Listen _ .  I  _ know _ .  Your longing, then, it was like… it was like a prayer.  I heard it.  I always heard it.  That’s why I didn’t just… dissipate, when the Leviathan ruined my body.  Or, I think that’s why.”  

Dean nods, thinking this over.  “You… you heard me.”  Cast nods solemnly, in return.  It should be surprising, amazing, embarrassing, that Cas had heard his longing and that that is what saved him from the Leviathan; pick one, pick any of those, but it just seems right, to Dean.  Of course.  Of course, he saved Castiel.  Of course Castiel had heard him.  Castiel always hears him, somehow.    

“I can’t lose you like that again, Cas.  I just, I can’t.  It was bad enough when I could have offed myself, at least that would have been a way out, and I thought about it then, I thought about it almost every night.  But now… now I’d have to live with it.  Forever.  I  _ can’t _ , Cas.”  

Castiel couldn't, either.  “The Leviathan were ancient, and powerful, and they were legion, Dean,” Cas says, looking up into Dean’s eyes, which are still far away.  “They ruined my body and they scratched and clawed and tore at my grace, because they hated me and they wanted to destroy me completely, for subjugating them.”

A silent tear leaks down from Dean’s eye.  “So sorry, Cas,” he whispers.

Cas bites his lip and shakes his head, vehemently, the hardest, most sudden movement he has made since Dean has been awake.  “No, Dean, you don’t understand, you’re not listening.  They were so powerful, and they tried so hard, all of them, to strike me from  _ existence,  _ because they hated me, and they  _ couldn’t _ .  They  _ couldn’t _ , Dean, just because you prayed to me and I heard you.  And I held on to you and wouldn’t let go because I knew I had to come back to you.”   _ I held on to you, so tight.  With everything I had.  With everything.   _

“Cas,” Dean’s voice is gravelly, watery.  

“And that was before the Mark, before you were Chosen, it was before the promise and before I figured out about the halos.  It was before this,” he runs his fingers softly, lovingly, over the shimmery tattoo on his neck.  “The Leviathan couldn’t even stand before us now, Dean, if they tried.  They couldn’t come between us.  We would destroy them.”  He says it with absolute certainty, his voice full of iron and steel and violence.  So sure, his angel.  Always so sure, for him.

Dean is broken on it.  “Cas.  Don't leave me.  Please.”  He sounds so sad, and afraid.  Another side of him that almost no one ever sees.  No one but Castiel.

Dean has bent the universe to his will, with his blood, to keep them together forever; Castiel has offered his own blood and his grace, his heart and his mind and his body and sworn ‘Forever,’ and still, still, Dean is afraid.  Because he has never had anything, before, and now he has everything, and he doesn't think he will be able to keep it.  Because he knows what he has with Cas is something that could never be replaced.  Because living forever without Castiel would be worse than dying.  Because everyone he ever cared about him has left him.  Because if Cas leaves him it would be more than he could bear.  Because he would become the demon.  Because it would take him and there would be nothing left; because he would become what he had given all of himself to fight.

Castiel can feel this fear, and it cuts right through him.  It's dark, and black, and so deep he can't see the bottom of it.  He wishes, with all his heart, that Dean could feel what Castiel feels for him, the same way that Castiel can feel Dean’s emotions, through his Name.  He wishes Dean could feel that Castiel will never leave him.  He wishes Dean could feel how much Castiel loves him.  Castiel told Sam that he loves Dean more than anyone has ever loved anyone, and it is true, and Dean knows that Castiel said that, but he can’t  _ feel it _ .  Castiel thinks that if Dean could just  _ feel  _ it, even just for a second, then maybe he wouldn’t be so afraid.

“Dean,” he says.  He whispers it, “Dean.”  Dean shivers beneath him, and clutches him closer.  He doesn't know how else to ease this fear; he knows that words and promises are not enough, he has given those already, he has given them all.  He thinks that maybe nothing can really ease this, or maybe only time.  Long lengths of time, the eons, that Cas will give to Dean, together, to show him that this is real.  That is all Castiel can think of that might ease this fear, not to promise ‘Forever’ but to live that promise.  To be with Dean, completely, and never leave him.

It might take a long time to ease this fear, Castiel thinks, it might take forever, if the fear is as deep as their bond is precious.  But he will start living his promise right now.  It is the only thing he can do.  

He settles his body more heavily over Dean's, covering him as best he can, from toes to foreheads, taking Dean's hands in his own and kissing the knuckles, light, soft, presses of his lips.  “I'm here, Dean.  Right here with you.  Always.”

Dean melts into Castiel's warmth and his body stills.  He wraps his arms around Castiel's back and buries his face in Castiel's neck and whispers, “Please.”  Castiel’s heart breaks, but he doesn’t move.  He doesn’t move an inch.

\---Past--- 

_ “Dean, no, don’t go, Dean, no!” Castiel’s hands try to find purchase on Dean’s transparent form and can’t, they slip right through.  “NO!”  He sobs.   _   
  
_ But Dean is gone.  _

Castiel’s hands grasp through the air where Dean was laying against him for a second more, and when they come up empty, when they tell him that Dean is well and truly gone, he starts to panic, his chest seizing and his breaths coming in fast, ugly, rasps.   _ Dean _ .  Dean is  _ gone.   _ Dean has left him, he is here, by himself, and he is cold, it’s so cold, he can’t breathe, he can’t think.  He tries to squeeze his hand into his fist and assess his situation, as he has trained, as he has spent his whole life doing, as a soldier, but the assessment just makes his panic worse.  Where is he?  Hell.  What are his assets?  None.  He has no power, no weapons.  What is his condition?  He can’t fly, he can’t fight.  He is only just barely, barely, healed from his Fall, now, and the scars of his wings are still stiff and still ache in the night.  Who are his allies?  No one.  Every demon here, every one, would kill him, or worse, without a second thought.  Crowley,  _ maybe _ Crowley, might be willing to help him, but no doubt the price would be unthinkable.    

He grits his teeth, and a tear of frustration leaks out of eyes that are squeezed shut.  His draws his hands up into his sweater. Most importantly, most importantly of all,  _ Dean _ .  Dean has left him and it is so cold, he needs Dean, he needs to feel safe in his arms again, he needs to be  _ warm again,  _ he needs  _ Dean,  _ just  _ Dean,  _ Father, please, and his brain spins like this, spinning and wobbling and in a moment it is going to spin off of a cliff and then he is going to lie, broken into pieces, at its foot until Dean comes to put him back together again.  If he can be put back together.  If Dean can return to him.  

He hovers there, on the edge.

Then he hears it, dim, disembodied in the air, so faint he's not sure whether he really heard it or only wishes he had.   _ Castiel.   _ Dean’s voice.  He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.   _ Dean.   _ “Dean,” he says it out loud, just in case Dean can hear him too. __ Dean will return to him.  He swore it.  He swore it with his  _ blood _ , it  _ will  _ come to pass.  He just has to wait, and be prepared.  He has to keep himself whole so that when Dean returns to him, he is not broken.  So that when Dean returns to him he can embrace him and be proud.  

He draws his hands up into the sweater Dean gave him, and wraps his arms around himself to make himself a little warm.   _ How long? _ He wonders.  How long, will he have to endure.  

He knows that a summoning takes 10 seconds.  He counts to 10.  He knows that it takes another 10 seconds to travel from basically anywhere on Earth back to the Pit.  He counts to 10 again.  He remembers that time passes faster in Hell than on Earth, about 10 times faster, so he counts to 100.  

100 seconds, and Dean has not returned to him.  Panic starts to rise up in the back of his throat again.  Maybe Dean is hurt, or imprisoned.  Maybe it wasn’t Sam that summoned him, as he had thought, maybe it was someone else, someone worse.  One of the surviving angels, Death, Fenris, who Cas knows swore that he would one day usher Dean into Valhalla.  Maybe that day has come.  

Cas forces himself to swallow.  Imagining the worst is paralyzing him.  He needs to think of what is  _ likely _ , of what scenarios could actually be playing out and how he can best respond to them.  Dean  _ said  _ “Sam.”  He said that it was Sam that was summoning him.  It is worthwhile to consider this as the first, most likely, possibility.  

If it was Sam that summoned Dean, then probably Dean is not injured, but also probably Sam and Dean are arguing.  Dean would express his anger at having been summoned against his will (“What the Hell, Sammy,”; a tiny smile creeps up the corner of Castiel’s mouth, imagining it), and Sam would start trying to interrogate Dean right away, find out what’s going on with him, where he’s been, where Cas is, whether Dean has done something to him.  Sam would have a lot of questions.  Dean wouldn’t want to answer them, because he’d just be pissed off and want to leave.  But Sam wouldn’t let him.  Sam would be persistent.  They would argue.  

Castiel imagines that the argument might take half an hour.  He has witnessed many arguments between the brothers.  30 minutes on Earth.  300 minutes in Heaven.  Eighteen thousand seconds.  The counting grounded him before, gave him something to focus on, gave him an immediate purpose that he could achieve.  So he will count again, he thinks.  He will count again to help him master the panic.  He leans back against the headboard of the bed and closes his eyes, and listens until he can hear the beat of his heart.  He counts its beat eighteen thousand times.  Eighteen thousand times, and when it is over, Dean has not returned to him.  He thinks maybe he counted too fast, maybe his heart is beating double time, because he is so afraid.  So he counts to eighteen thousand again, just to be sure.  

And Dean has not returned to him.  Dean has not even called---

Castiel’s eyes burst open.  His panic has blinded him, made him a fool.  Why doesn’t he just  _ call  _ Dean?  If he is with Sam, surely Sam will allow this, and he will be able to find out what is going on.  He picks his phone up off his nightstand.  It only has one number in it.  ‘Dean’, it says, with the little red horned emoji next to it.  Castiel smiles again, in spite of himself.  Dean put that there.  Dean set his phone up like that, to make Castiel smile.  Dean loves him so much.  

His stomach drops.  And Dean is  _ gone _ .  Dean has been taken away from him.  His hands shake and stumble with the phone, unlocking it, pressing the right combination to dial Dean’s number.  He holds his phone to his ear so hard his fingers cramp.  It starts to ring.

And across the room, he hears a tinny version of  _ All of My Love _ start to play.  Out of the speakers of Dean’s phone.  Which is on Dean’s nightstand.

Castiel sobs in frustration, and throws his own phone across the room.  He holds his head in his hands and cries loudly, wetly, his cries so big and achy that they choke him as they rise up out of his throat.   _ Dean _ .  He cries.   _ Dean, Dean Dean.  I NEED you, Dean, where are you _ ?  He shrinks himself down into his sweater as far as he can, trying to cover as much of himself with it as possible, but it doesn’t work, he’s still cold, and the sweater doesn’t smell like Dean, only like himself.

He reaches out and grabs handfuls of blanket on the bed beneath him, and rolls himself up in them.  Now he is a little warmer, and now he can smell Dean, a little bit.  But it is still not enough, he is still cold and Dean is still gone and he feels so  _ exposed _ , even though there is no entrance to their bed chamber other than by magic (and that only even possible for himself, Dean, and, unfortunately, Crowley.  Probably Lucifer, too, if he were not Caged).  

He gathers  _ all  _ the blankets from the bed, and Dean’s pillow, leaving his own.  They trail behind him as he trudges into the bathroom, and locks the door behind him.  That feels a little more secure, being in a smaller room, having a locked door.  He gets into the tub, which is even closer, and smaller, and wraps himself up in all the blankets, like a burrito, with only his head barely peeking out.  This he buries his nose in Dean’s pillow, and breathes deep.  And breathes deep again.  A tiny measure of calm starts to return to him, warm and enclosed in a small space that smells like Dean.  The counting helped, before, too.  It helped him.

He decides he will count to 1 million.  He will count to 1 million and breathe in Dean’s scent, and that is how much time he will give himself to panic.  After that, he will make a plan.  After that, he will not be Castiel, broken, helpless, hiding.  After that he will try to remember how to be an Angel of the Lord again.  After that, he will be a warrior.  For Dean.     

“One,” he counts, out loud, under his breath.  He imagines Dean on his knees, calling out for him, Castiel.  He exhales.  “Two.”   _ I’m coming Dean.  I’ll make myself strong again, for you.  I swear it.   _

“Three.”

\---Present---

It is not all of forever, that Castiel rests his head on Dean’s chest and breathes into his neck, and kisses it softly with reverent lips, though Castiel would gladly give him that.  It is not forever, but it is a long time on Earth and even longer in Hell.  It is long enough that the tears stop falling from Dean's eyes and his heart stops hammering in his chest.  It is long enough that Castiel has started to doze again, when he is woken by Dean rumbling “I have to go,” into the top of Cas’ head, like there is nothing he would rather do less.  

“No, you don’t,” Cas replies, without moving, completely unimpressed.  “You are the Master.”

“I do.  Got some dickbags causing trouble in Iowa.  Lucifer cultists.  Gotta deal with ‘em.”  Dean says this listlessly, like he doesn’t even believe himself, combing his fingers through Castiel's hair.

“We can stay here all day and it will only be an hour on Earth.”  Castiel is motionless like a rock. A rock that has not moved for a million years.  A rock that has been warmed by the desert sun.  Dean relaxes into him again, into the comfort and the warmth and everything that is good there.   But there’s a tickling in his ribs that he can’t ignore.    

He squirms, and lets go of one of Castiel’s hands to try to itch at it, but it’s one of those sensations that doesn’t seem to respond to scratching on the outside.  He knows why.  “They keep trying to summon your douche big bro but they’re too incompetent; they’ve got the wrong ritual and they keep calling  _ me _ , instead.”

Castiel yawns.  He’s still not impressed.  “They can’t summon you.  You’re protected.”  He brushes the fingers of his free hand over one of the tattoos on Dean’s chest.  The one he strokes is a member of a series, that prevent Dean from being summoned by human, demon, angel, or deity; he strokes the human segment with a single finger.  The lines are straight, and thick, unbroken; Dean cannot be summoned by human cultists. He cannot be summoned by demon-kind, or the angels that remain; he could not be summoned by Zeus, or Ra, if they called his name.  Crowley, king,  _ might _ be able to summon Dean by name,  _ might,  _ but he wouldn’t be that stupid.  He would call first, at least.  Castiel had tattooed each of these into Dean’s skin himself, when he got him back from Sam, that first time, after the promise.  He never wanted to feel Dean summoned out from under his hands ever again.

Dean yawns too.  It’s contagious.  “I know that.  But it’s annoying as fuck.  And I don’t want them to start wondering why it’s not working and end up stumbling ass backwards into the  _ right _ ritual.”

“Then I will armor you.”  Cas says, with great solemnity.

Dean rolls his eyes.  “C’mon, Cas, these guys are lightweights.  They don't even know me from Lucifer.  It's a milk run.”

“You don't know that.  What if they are doing this ritual on purpose, to try to lure you out?  What if they actually are in contact with Lucifer and he has advised them to bait you this way?  What if they have been co-opted by one of your other enemies?  What if they have a weapon we don't know about?  What if they have a spell that is new, that you are not protected against?”

Dean rubs at the tattoos on his chest too, thinking about what they do and do not protect him from.  He hadn't realy thought of any of the possibilities Cas has just raised, because he doubts any of them are likely.  This isn't his first rodeo.  Sometimes a cultist is just a cultist.  And Cas is paranoid as fuck, especially where Dean is concerned.  He figures that's how you stay alive, when all of Heaven is chasing you.  “These guys are not evil masterminds, Cas, trust me.  We’re not talking about Lex Luthor here; their Latin is for shit, their rituals are for shit, they're amateurs.”

Cas narrows his eyes.  “I do not understand that reference.  But I will armor you just the same.  If one of them were to harm you, I would have to take a very long time to Teach them.  Time I would not get to spend with you.”

_ Don't ‘I do not understand that reference’ me; we've watched all of the Superman movies; Gene Hackman AND Jesse Eisenberg,  _ Dean thinks.  But he doesn’t let himself be derailed. __ “You like to Teach them.  Don't pretend that you don't.”

“I like begging you to make me come better,” Cas growls, his voice suddenly nails and broken glass, suddenly done arguing, changing tracks to… something else.  He runs his fingers lightly down Dean's arms.  “I like it better when you fuck me like you did yesterday.  When you make me scream.  There's nothing I like better, than that.”   His voice turns quiet and dangerous; his lips soft against Dean's neck.  “Wouldn't you rather take me like that again, Dean?  Than have me cloistered away, teaching lessons that should not have to be taught?  Wouldn't you rather hold me down and spread my legs apart and fuck me until I can't breathe?”

Dean shivers.  “Jesus, Cas, ok, ok, have it your way,  _ Christ _ .”

“That's what I thought.” And though he was teasing Dean unbearably a moment ago, Castiel moves off and away immediately once Dean agrees.  To get the armor out from the armory, Dean supposes.  Dean allows himself to shiver again when he thinks about what's about to happen:  Cas touching his bare skin with careful hands. Protecting it with hard leather that shines and binds him and makes him strong.  Fastening and tightening until the armor holds him safe, and close, like an embrace.

It's Cain’s armor that Castiel is fetching, back from when Cain was at the head of the Knights and they were tearing shit up on Earth and in Hell.  It's black leather, so smooth that it gleams; a coat and gauntlets both with golden buckles and words of protection and strength gilded in small, even lines of bright red.  Boots too, heavy, thick leather that come up to his knees and fasten with more gold buckles instead of laces.  The set also has a cape, scarlet, with the Mark sewn in thread of gold three feet high across the back, held to his shoulders with epaulets of gold, but he refused that when Cas first showed it to him.  Too fucking fussy, he wears this shit when he's going to be killing people, not when he's going to the fucking ball.  And it works real well, for that, for killing people.  Drives back blades, breaks punches, deflects kicks like water.  

It works so well it makes him wonder why he never thought to wear armor  _ before,  _ when he was human and vulnerable and actually killable; when he didn’t heal everything but a decapitation in a second or two.  It makes the fights so much easier, so much less frightening, to be protected by something real; a physical barrier between him and what is trying to hurt him, instead of only his happy-go-lucky attitude.  Sam probably would have made fun of him, for suiting up, called him Prince Charming or some shit, but Sam could have laughed all the way to the hospital when his ribs got broken and Dean’s were nice and cozy inside his armor.  

Maybe it had just been too ostentatious back then? Most of the time as a hunter he was trying  _ not  _ to draw the bad guy’s attention to himself.  Hard to be discrete wearing this get up (even without the cape), but now he doesn’t mind if his marks see him coming.  Makes them afraid, careless.  Makes them run.  He kind of likes that, too:  that he’s not the one that is afraid, anymore, when he enters a fight.  That now it’s the other guy that knows he’s about to get got.    

So yeah, he doesn't dislike the armor, really; that's not why he hesitated when Castiel suggested it.  He likes the way he feels when he's wearing it, he definitely likes the injuries he  _ doesn’t _ get when he fights in it, and he  _ loves _ how Cas’ hands feel on him when he puts it on.  He just sometimes feels like it's too big a deal for a guy like him.  Especially when he's just out to scare some asshole cultists.  Because who is he?  He's just some guy.  He's just Dean Winchester, of the Kansas Winchesters, son of an alcoholic who lived out of his car until his obsession killed him like everyone always knew it would.  He's got some fancy Mark, now, but that was only supposed to have been a means to an end.  He's Master, in the Pit, but that's only because he's got a pretty face that makes the King of Hell do whatever he wants.  If the universe were fair, he'd be living in a trailer somewhere, drinking Miller Light out of a mini fridge and fixing cars.  Who is he to walk around in gold and perfect leather that fits him like a glove?  Who is he, to take any glory onto himself?  

Castiel does not agree with any of this.  Dean has the Mark because he was strong enough to bear it when Cain was not, any more.  Dean is the Master because he is righteous and he has brought the Pit back in line with the Father’s plan; he has made it about redemption, instead of mindless torture.  The universe  _ is _ fair, though the arc of its justice is long, and if Dean would let him Castiel would kneel before him and wrap him entirely in plate of gold at all times, spell words of protection over him in blood, and light, that would melt blades raised against him, blind his enemies, make them weak.  Dean shakes his head, thinking about it.  Who is he, to be worth even the least of that?  He’s just Dean.    

Castiel thinks that is enough.  This is why when he returns with the armor, he does kneel.  He kneels at Dean's feet. He will armor Dean, whether the cultists are masterminds or imbeciles; whether Dean believes he deserves it, or not.  On his knees, he whispers a prayer.  Dean does not quite catch it, but he recognizes the cadence and he knows the words:   _ for thine is the kingdom and the glory, and the power, now and forever, amen.  _  Castiel doesn't cross himself, at the end, and Dean doesn’t either.  Dean thinks Cas could have gotten in a lot of trouble for saying that, to Dean, as an angel, could have gotten sent to Ms. Naomi’s Re-education Camp for Wayward Boys to teach him again the difference between Dean Winchester and the Lord most High.  He thinks it's more than close to blasphemy.  He thinks Cas could probably still get in trouble for it now, if Chuck gave a shit.  But Chuck doesn’t give a shit, that's one thing Dean knows for sure, and he named Dean the Firewall, anyway.  He pretty much gave up the fucking Kingdom and left it in Dean’s fucking lap, not that Dean ever asked for it or was ever given any say in the matter.

Dean is barefoot, and bare-chested, wearing only black jeans like a second skin.  This is how he is normally attired in Hell.  From where he kneels, Castiel takes Dean's bare feet in sure hands.  He traces their outlines with his index finger, and then slides black wool socks, thin, and soft, up over them, up under Dean's jeans, up to his knees.  So Dean won’t get blisters, from the boots.  Strong fingers trace Dean’s calves, as they rise.  It feels good.  Gentle and soft, but also purposeful.  Castiel taking care of him, even if Dean doesn't think he needs it.  “ _ Angel, _ ” he might whisper, so soft that Castiel doesn’t hear it, at the foot of the bed.  Or pretends not to, at least.  

Castiel fits Dean’s feet into the boots next, one at a time.  Snapping each buckle down, starting at his ankle and working up to his to knee, not too loose, not too tight. Dean feels his blood beating against the leather where it holds his legs fast.  He flexes his toes and glances at the manacles fixed to the posts of the bed he is laying on.  He thinks about how it would feel if Castiel were to bind his legs too, hold them still while they are wrapped tight, and his back arches up from the mattress as he releases a soft breath.   

Cas slides his hands into the arch.  They skate up Dean’s thighs, pressing him down, and take Dean’s hands in his own.  He tugs Dean up, to standing, tugs him in towards his own body, for the next part.  Not putting on the coat and gauntlets.  That comes later.  No, next, he will check Dean’s skin.  “So that I will not fail to notice if you return to me with injuries, Dean, no matter how small.”  This is how Castiel had explained it, the first time, as Dean blushed and looked away under his scrutiny.

Dean knows that’s not the real reason now, though, if it ever was.  His skin is perfect; pale and smooth, marked only by his freckles and tattoos set there by Castiel’s own hands.  The Mark would not allow him to be otherwise.  It has made him murderous, but it has not made him grotesque.  No, it heals him; he doesn’t have a scrape, a bruise, even a hangnail, anywhere on his body.  Castiel knows this.  Castiel checks him, every inch, every time, just the same.

Castiel slides into Dean's personal space, under his guard, like a hot knife into butter, his hips brushing just up against Dean's own, denim scraping against black denim.  With a single index finger he traces Dean's arms, from his palms to his shoulders, every vein, every curve, first his left, then his right, eyes hard and glinting, observing everything, missing nothing, as if he had not memorized every line of Dean's body a hundred times over already, a thousand. “ _ Perfect,”  _ he breathes, sounding awed, as a blush blooms in Dean's cheeks.  “ _ Dean.”   _ Dean doesn't understand how Castiel can still sound that stunned, just from looking at him, after all this time, and all they have shared, together.  He didn't even understand it the first time Castiel saw him.

His heart thumps hard in his chest.  Each touch of Castiel's finger feels like it is calling Dean's blood up to his skin, and heating there.  Each touch is setting his nerves on fire.  Castiel is so intense, and Dean's skin is so bare.  His cock throbs in his jeans, throbs against Castiel.  He knows Castiel can feel it, he can feel Castiel, too, growing against him.  Dean shivers, aware of how vulnerable he is, how exposed under Castiel's prowling gaze.  There is nothing, nothing, that protects his skin from Castiel's eyes or his fingers, his lips or his hands or anything else.  Dean dares to look up into Castiel's eyes and his breath catches on what he finds there.  Castiel is  _ hungry.   _ His eyes are dark, his mouth red and swollen.  Castiel wants to make him strong.  Castiel wants him.  He could have anything, from Dean, right now.  What will he take?

“Dean,” Castiel repeats, in a growl, and continues his examination. His right index finger begins at the hollow of Dean’s throat, and slides downward, over his chest, his abdomen, his navel, the coarse hair beneath; the path that a blade would take to gut him.  Blades cannot gut him now, no matters who bears them, but Castiel’s finger cuts him just as sharp, just as sure; bleeds him out just as fast as a blade and makes his head feel light, and empty.  Cas’ finger stops at the button of Dean's jeans, and hooks into his waistband, to tug him closer, so that their hips are aligned but their chests are separated, just, by a sliver of charged air.  Cas’ mouth hovers over the juncture of Dean’s neck and shoulder, breathing heavily, hot, damp, air pulsing over Dean’s skin in waves.  Dean waits for Cas’ mouth to close down over his neck, he waits for Cas’ body to melt into his.  An inhale, an exhale, waiting, his cock completely hard now, in his jeans, his body fizzing with tiny sparks, his head empty and floating away.  

The moment is heavy, and long.  But Cas is not done with his examination, yet.  He steps back, suddenly, leaving the air in front of Dean cold and Dean thrusting into it, involuntarily, a small, soft, noise, escaping his parted lips.  Castiel catches Dean’s waist and spins him, so fast that it is over before Dean can respond to the touch, so that now he can examine Dean’s back.  That single finger reaches out again, and slides from the nape of Dean’s neck down each knob of his spine, again stopping at the waistband of his jeans.  It traces the right angles of each shoulder, and then the hard, smooth, scars where Dean’s wings attach to his body.  “Let me see them?” Cas breathes, voice thick, and Dean swallows hard, and obeys.

A heavy  _ rush _ breaks the air as Dean’s wings come forth, the muscles in Dean’s shoulders rolling and rippling as they spread out and fill the room; a twelve foot span that Dean bears as if it weighs nothing.  They are black, so black that they seem they could swallow the sky.  But they are not dull, they  _ shine _ , like polished onyx, or ebony. They are soft, like silk, under Castiel’s hands, and he begins to observe them as carefully as he has been examining the rest of Dean's body.  One finger traces each line of feathers, setting them right if they are out of true, plucking them away if they are dull or broken.   When they are perfect he continues to comb his hands through them, up and down, up and down, mindlessly, just feeling them, the softness, and the  _ power _ . Touching them is like touching the surface of some massive machinery that thrums far under the earth, a deep vibration that runs from his hands to his arms to his elbows; into his heart.  He combs into them, and his body matches the rhythm and rolls against Dean's back.  

Dean is completely still, eyes closed, breaths catching in his throat.  He is afraid that if he moves, if he adds at all to the sensation of Castiel moving against his wings, he will be overcome, and turn, force Castiel down into the bed and take him, break him in half and bite into him like a ripe strawberry until he screams.  “Cas,” he growls under his breath.  “Castiel.”

Castiel keeps moving against Dean, combing his fingers into Dean's wings, moaning a little on each exhale until he has stroked every feather to a perfect shine. “Ok,” he says in a quiet voice, then, “Ok,” and pats Dean on the shoulder twice, fingers heavy and lingering.  “That's enough,” he says, his voice strangled with lust.  He doesn’t want to let go of Dean's wings and let them disappear into the ether, but he can’t put Dean’s coat on while they are out.  “Bring him back to me,” he whispers into them as they fold away, like a secret, “Bring him back safe.”

It is Dean’s turn to pretend that he doesn’t hear, as he hides his wings away.  Castiel wobbles, when the wings retreat from underneath his hands.  Like he is too drunk on their softness to stand straight.

Castiel breathes deep, to steady himself.  Then he picks up Dean's coat in one hand.  The buckles clank against each other heavily as he raises it.  Folded inside it is a black shirt of quilted linen, and Castiel drapes this over Dean's head.  Like the socks, this will protect Dean's skin from the rub of hard leather.  Dean raises his arms, mechanically, and Castiel works them through the long sleeves.  

Dean hums to himself, and thinks.  His mind is a little clearer now that his wings are tucked away, and his skin is not bare, and he is not completely naked to Castiel's examination.  “Will you go to the bunker, for Sam, while I'm gone?”  This is what he had intended to ask Castiel yesterday, when he found him in the throne room.  Before he…. Before.  

“You want him to be more comfortable.”  Castiel says this as his long fingers thread together the laces of the shirt, which fasten down Dean's side.  It is not a question.

“Well, yeah.”  

Castiel hums in affirmation.  Dean raises a hand to the back of his neck.  “And I told him he could go out and around, you know, see the place, check out the library, as long as you are with him.”  

Castiel takes the hand Dean is rubbing against his neck in his own, and returns it to his side, so that when he finally ties the laces of Dean's shirt, it does not hang crooked.  “Of course, Master.”  He eyes Dean's now covered chest.  “Arms out.”  

Dean raises both of his arms, straight out in front of him, to shoulder height.  In this position, Castiel can drape his coat over him.  It has 16 gold buckles.  Four up each side, and two pairs of two on each arm, one pair at his shoulder and another around his bicep, to hold it in place.  Castiel fastens them, one by one, and the armor tightens around him.  

He's not exactly the same size as Cain, so he knows the fit must have some magic to it, because it is perfect.  As Castiel snaps each buckle closed, the feeling of vulnerability he had when he was bare fades away, and is replaced gradually with a steady kind of strength.  Instead of feeling like his skin is open and exposed to the entirety of the world and the void beyond it and all the evil there is, he feels like he is being held in a perfect embrace that touches every inch of his skin and shields him from the world and its dangers.  The linen is warm and soft, and the leather hard and unyielding outside it.  Again he glances at the manacles on his bed, and again he wonders what it would feel like to be bound, within this hardness, and tightness.  He will have to ask Castiel for that, sometime.  He knows Castiel will give it to him.  Castiel will give him whatever he wants.  He shivers again, imagining himself held down, held tight, while Castiel moves over him, kisses him, touches him.    

Castiel opens and closes each buckle several times, making sure they are neither too tight, nor too loose, and each movement makes Dean float higher.  Castiel’s adjustments make it feel like it is not some anonymous hand embracing him, but rather Castiel, in all his strength and all his care.  It is Castiel holding him, Castiel who opens and closes the last buckle over and over, making minuscule adjustments that only he can notice.  

Dean wonders who used to do this, for Cain.  Some enslaved demon?  Lucifer?  Crowley hasn't been around long enough for that, right?  Alastair, maybe, sallow fingers lingering and sycophantic?  Or maybe the magic in the fit is enough that the coat can suit itself.  Dean shrugs.  It's too late to ask Cain, now.  His secrets are all bled out on the floor of a barn in Nebraska.  

“Be still,” Castiel admonishes against Dean's shrug, as he picks up Dean's left gauntlet.  Always left first, then right.  Dean doesn't know why; if it is some ancient rule of heraldry or if Castiel doesn't even notice he's doing it.  Dean stills, anyway.  He loves Castiel’s voice, when it commands him, dark and low.  No one else would dare to command him now.  Castiel can do it with only a motion of his eye.

“They are human, these cultists?” Castiel asks, tightening the straps under Dean's left gauntlet, from wrist to elbow, where it meets his coat.  He makes sure there are no gaps between coat and gauntlet, where a blade might find Dean's skin.  

Dean nods in the affirmative, bottom lip between his teeth.

“Will you kill them?”  The question is asked without judgement.  Castiel could not care less about the lives of a handful of cultists, if they are a danger to Dean.  

“Undecided,” Dean answers.  “Depends on if they're up to anything else besides being shitty at Latin; depends on whether I think I can scare ‘em straight.”

“If they threaten you, kill them.  Or I will.”  Castiel says this so casually, as he picks up Dean's right gauntlet.  He says it like he's talking about who should gas up the Impala or who should order more coffee from Amazon.  Dean knows that it would be a mercy to kill these cultists , to keep them from Castiel, if he believes they could bring Dean harm.  He thinks this is why Castiel says this; so that Dean will not hesitate, if it comes to killing.

Castiel tightens the last buckle on Dean's right gauntlet and steps back.  At the same time, Dean feels a  _ thrum  _ of power roll over him.  He flexes a fist, to feel the leather creak, turns his wrists over and back.  

Castiel runs his fingers over the leather on Dean's chest.  Dean can feel the pressure, but only distantly.  Castiel leans in close, as close as he can get without touching.  “Will you hurry back to me?  Time passes so fast, here.”  He asks this quietly.  

Dean gravitates into Castiel’s touch, like Castiel is the sun and he is the earth, drawn, irresistibly, feeling released from Castiel’s command to be still now that he is suited.  His mouth hovers just below Castiel's ear.  “Fast as I can, angel.  Always.”

Castiel's mouth is aligned with Dean's ear, too, and he speaks lowly into it, “When you come back, I want to feel you as deep as you can go, as hard as you can go, for as long as you can go.”  And he presses the heel of his hand against Dean's erection, through his jeans.

Dean shivers, and bites at Castiel's earlobe, and grinds himself against Castiel, hardness to hardness once, and calls his wings, now perfect and gleaming.  “Yes, angel,” he growls, and flexes his wings, high and wide.  Before Castiel can reach out and grab his hips, or bury his hands in his wings, or bite down in his neck, he is gone.

“Hurry back,” Castiel whispers into the cold air.

\---Past---

Castiel wakes, from a sleep he didn't realize he had fallen into.  His body is sore, from sleeping in the tub, and his neck aches from being pressed into Dean's pillow at an awkward angle.  His eyes are tear stained, and crusty from clenching closed against the glare of the bathroom light.  He is cold.   _ Dean. _  He clutches his blankets to him tighter.   _ Dean.   _ Dean being gone hurts him the most of all. __ He doesn't have even a second of calm, when he wakes; his anxiety clutched him like a claw the entire time he slept and never let go.

He must have fallen asleep while he was counting.  He doesn't quite remember exactly how far he got, but he does remember reaching 579,331, because it is a prime.  He decides he will start there again, because he is not calm, he is not rested, he is not ready to get out of the tub and make a plan.  But he has to be.  He has to get there.  For Dean.  For himself, and his sanity. He inhales, shaky, and winds his fingers into his blankets, and starts to count, to the beat of his heart.  579,332.  Dean.  579,333.  Dean.  He will count Dean's name a million times.  He will count a million heartbeats, pulsing ice from his heart through his veins, and all of them will have Dean's name.

He lies in the bathtub counting for two days, and he does not fall asleep again.  The boredom, and the repetition, and the concentration wash into him, three warm breezes on the frozen core of his heart.  He breathes.  He counts.  He prays Dean's name.  This is all he asks of himself, and he finds he can do it.  He is strong enough, for this.  Maybe he can be strong enough, for more.  When he reaches a million, he is tired of counting.  He is tired of the bathtub, and the ache in his body that only grows.  He is tired of the way the light glints off of the shower fixtures, into his eyes.  He is ready for more.  He is ready to be Castiel again, or at least to try.

He gathers his blankets around himself, and rises.  The ache in his body eases immediately when he stands up in the tub.  He leaves the bathroom, turning out its bright light and closing the door behind him so he doesn't have to see it any more.

Back in the bedroom, he picks up Dean's lighter from where it rests on the mantle of the fireplace, and starts a fire there.  A heavy wrought iron poker leans against the side of the fireplace, and he uses this to stoke the flames high and higher.  He should be melting, in this room with walls of black stone, with a fire raging and wrapped in three blankets, but it just only takes the edge off the chill.

The poker feels good in his hand, heavy and dangerous, so he doesn't put it down as he paces in front of the fire.  He looks unhinged, wrapped in blankets that trail out behind him, bare feet slapping on stone as he paces, hair sticking out in every direction, eyes bloodshot and watery, clenching a poker in his hand.  But he pays no mind to how he looks, he could not care less.  Instead, he focuses only on assessing his situation again, so he can make a plan.  A better plan than counting in the bathtub.

First, he defines his objective, so that he can cast all of his assessments against it.  The objective is clear, and simple:   _ Find Dean, and go to him _ .  When he reaches Dean, he may need to heal him, or help him escape; he may need to kill enemies that are holding him, break a spell cast on him, or dispel wards holding him in place.  He does not know what he will need to do when he finds Dean, but he knows that he needs to find him.  He needs to go to him.  Having this objective grounds him, and keeps his mind from spinning out like it did when last he tried to assess this situation.  He takes a deep breath.  

_ Where is he? _  He is in his room, in the Pit of Hell.  It has no entrances or exits, so he is safe, for the moment.  But he will need to leave this room eventually, and when he does there are a million demons in the Pit that would hurt him, if they saw him.  And they  _ would _ hurt him.  Because they know he was an angel.  Because they hate Dean, and they know it would hurt Dean if they hurt Castiel.  They would laugh, their sharp teeth would click together while they tore him apart.  He doesn’t think they could do anything to him that would be worse than his Fall, and he knows that Dean would come for him, eventually.  But he doesn’t want Dean to have to come for him, and find him, broken on a rack in Hell.  That is not his objective.  His objective is  _ Find Dean, and go to him. _

_ What are his assets? _  He hefts the poker in his right hand.  He has an iron poker.  How many demons could he slay, with this, before they overwhelmed him?  Not enough.  He needs more.  He needs to get to the armory, the library, that adjoin Dean’s throne room.  There, he can find armor to protect him, weapons to fight against the demons or Dean’s enemies, and spells that can help him  _ Find Dean, and go to him _ .  But how can he get there?  He cannot walk through the Pit, armed only with an iron poker.  He has one more asset, that may help him.  In his room, with him, he has his cell phone.  But it only has Dean’s phone number in it.  If he had other numbers, he could call his allies, and they could help him get to the throne room.  Maybe.

_ Who are his allies?  _  Dean, always first, cannot help him now.  Sam, also stalwart, is likely not an ally in this situation, because Sam is his best guess as to who has summoned Dean away.  That is what Dean thought was happening, when the summons took him.  Sam probably will not release Dean, to Castiel, or even let Castiel see him.  Even so, Sam might at least confirm that he has Dean, and that Dean is alright.  That would achieve  _ Find Dean _ , if Sam confessed that he had Dean in the bunker.  He doesn’t have Sam’s phone number; Sam changes it too often for the last one Castiel memorized to be functional.  So he can’t call Sam.  But…

Crowley would have it.  Crowley would have Sam’s number.  And Castiel knows Crowley’s number, though it is not programmed into his phone.  He has seen it flashing on Dean’s phone often enough, and it is easy enough to remember:  666.  Castiel clenches his fist around the poker in his hand.  Is Crowley his ally?  He has been allied with Crowley before, and it almost broke him and Dean apart, permanently.  Dean would not want Castiel to ally with Crowley, to find him, no matter what condition he was held in.  Castiel knows this.  But he also knows that Crowley cares for Dean, in his way, and would not want to see him harmed.  He knows that Crowley much prefers Dean as a demon and so would be willing to act against Sam, if it were Sam’s plan to make Dean human again.  Demon Dean is a much, much higher priority for Crowley than Sam.  Even so, Crowley would not help Castiel for free.  There would be a price.  It would be a high price, high as Castiel’s desperation, which is as great and urgent as the sea.  There is no way that Crowley would miss that.  Castiel bites at his bottom lip.  

Does he have any other allies?  The other humans that might help him:  Bobby Singer, Kevin Tran, Charlie Bradbury, they are all dead, and in Heaven where he cannot reach them.  Almost all of the angels are dead too, against Dean’s blade.  Anael is dead.  Balthazar is dead, at Castiel’s own hand.  Gabriel is dead.  Hannah is alive, but will not leave Heaven for any reason, certainly not to come to the aid of an archdemon.  

Castiel bites harder into his lower lip.  Gabriel is  _ probably _ dead.  He is no more dead than Castiel was, last time Castiel was obliterated, and Gabriel is much more powerful than Castiel ever was.  Maybe Gabriel is alive.  Maybe he is in hiding, as he has been in the past, and will help Castiel.  Castiel tentatively adds “Gabriel” to his list of allies, maybe out of desperation.  Better Gabriel than Crowley, certainly.  He will pray to Gabriel, and beg for his help, when his assessment is complete.  He continues.

_ What is his condition?   _ His shoulders slump, when he asks himself this.  His condition is not good.  He is only just recovered from his Fall.  His body aches.  He has no grace for healing or fighting his enemies.  He has no wings to carry him to Dean.  He is weak, and cold, and his mind is so fragile that he had to spend two days counting in a bathtub.  His assessment of his condition strengthens his belief that getting to the armory and library should be his primary sub-objective.  He cannot help Dean in the condition he is in currently.  

He takes another deep breath.  It is decided.  He needs to be strengthened, by artifacts or spellcraft, to accomplish his objective.  He needs to get from his room to the armory.  He needs to call on his allies to help him.  Gabriel to fly him and protect him, or Crowley to grant him safe passage among the demons.  He paces back and forth in front of the fireplace for six more laps, chewing the inside of his cheek.  Does he really believe that Gabriel could help him, or is he fooling himself?  Why would Gabriel help him now, if he has hidden through so much other heartache, so many other disasters?  Maybe he sounds more pathetic now, he thinks.  Fallen, broken, afraid without Dean.  And Gabriel likes Dean, too, at least as much as Crowley does.  

He shakes his head.  There is no reason for him to question himself further.  He has an objective.  He has an immediate sub-objective.  It is time for action.  

Castiel kneels, and lets the blankets fall away from him as he folds his palms against each other, to pray.   _O Blessed Archangel Gabriel,_ he prays, _I beseech thee, do thou intercede for me at the throne of divine Mercy in my present necessity, that as thou didst announce to Mary the mystery of the Incarnation, so through thy prayers and patronage in Heaven I may obtain the benefits of the same, and sing the praise of God forever in the land of the living._  He thinks for a moment, still chewing the inside of his cheek, and adds to this standard prayer to Gabriel an entreaty of his own.   _Brother Gabriel.  I am in need.  I am Fallen, and trapped in Hell.  And Dean… Dean has been taken from me.  He is my everything, brother.  I need to find him, and go to him.  I cannot… I cannot bear this separation.  If you are in hiding, I swear to you that I will not tell a soul that I have seen you.  I swear it on our Father, the King of Kings.  Please.  Come to me._ _In the name of our Father, his Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen._

He sits back on his heels, and waits.   __ __

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uggh, Dean, you and your self-esteem issues, makin' me cry. F@ck you, John Winchester!
> 
> You can follow me on tumblr @ brainheartpizza (https://www.tumblr.com/blog/brainheartpizza). I post (basically unedited) excerpts in between AO3 updates.


	7. Tactics

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I will gather our allies. I will slay our enemies. I will lift a fiery sword and with it I will destroy anyone or anything that tries to keep me from you. Nothing can keep me from you, because I am rage and I am light. Hold your heart close, because I am coming and when I come it is going to be with the wrath of a stormy sea.

_This is like single combat, Son, only on a larger scale—a feint within a feint within a feint… seemingly without end._

\--DUNE, Frank Herbert

 

\---Present---

Dean asked Castiel to go to the bunker for Sam, before he left to fight the cultists, and Castiel said, “Of course, Master.”  He transports to the entrance, because this is where Sam fought with Baal, on his way to the fake werewolf hunt that Dean and Cas set up in Nebraska.  Sam dropped his bag, when Baal attacked, and it lays there, where he dropped it in the dirt.  Cas picks it up and hangs it over his shoulder.  Looking around at the signs of struggle, the cast up dust, drops of black blood on the ground, he spares a moment to hope that Dean is not being similarly lured, by the cultists.  They will regret it, he thinks with a scowl.  They will regret waking the dragon.  He will make sure of it.  

He hopes also that _he_ is not being lured, in this moment. It has occurred him that Sam might have spell work or wards in place in the bunker that could hold him, even hurt him.  And that Sam might not have told Dean about them, in hopes that even imprisoned in the Pit, he could catch Castiel, and hold his safety hostage in order to secure his release from the Pit from Dean.  It is not beyond Sam.  It is not beyond question.  It is a possibility that Castiel at least has to consider, to keep to his responsibility to Dean.  His responsibility to keep himself by Dean's side, safe from harm, always.   

In an outer pocket of Sam's duffel bag is a key to the bunker, that unlocks both its doors and its wards.  Castiel needs this, to get inside.  He has not been inside the bunker, in fact, since he sieged the dungeon to free Dean.  Sam was angry about that, and even Castiel can understand why.  He breached the fastness of the dungeon with a crack into the very Pit, and let loose into Sam's home and sanctuary a terrified swarm of Hell.  Sam has not invited him back, since.  And he has added more wards against angels.  Castiel notices these as he treads through the entrance, but they are not effective on him.  That they are present at all reflects the fact that Sam does not appreciate the irrevocable nature of Cas’ fall.  If he did, he wouldn't argue so much with Cas that he should try to restore his grace, and that would be one less argument between them.

The wards against angels hurt Castiel's heart more than they hold back his body.  He is not welcome, here, and it aches.  He has always wanted, so, to be welcome here.  With Dean, but also with Sam, who is worthy and who Cas would happily call ‘brother’.

Castiel pauses one step beyond the bunker’s front door, and looks around the entranceway with narrowed eyes that interrogate every detail.  Nothing seems amiss.  His hand tightens around the nylon strap of Sam's duffel bag.  The bunker seems large, and menacing, now, too empty, too quiet.  Not familiar or comforting.  What could be hidden here, that could harm him? He circles his surroundings with his eyes again, and casts out a black net of the power he shares with Dean.  It catches on nothing, and fades away.

Is Sam is in his cell now, Cas wonders, with his hands behind his head, waiting for Dean to crash in and haul him up by the shirt again and demand to know what has happened to Cas, because Cas has been gone to the bunker for too long?  Would Sam have warned Dean, if there were traps for Cas in the bunker, when Dean told Sam Cas was going there?  Or would he have held his tongue, to use Cas’ safety against Dean as a way to bargain his way out of Hell?  It is an ugly possibility but Castiel cannot let it go, worrying it in the back of his mind like a piece of sand in his shoe, letting it grow to wild, preposterous proportions in the quiet of the bunker.

He tries to shake his paranoia off, and takes a step towards Sam's room.  One step, then he pauses again, his paranoia settling again, heavy on his shoulders, like a wool blanket that itches. It makes him remember the times when he used Sam against Dean as a piece in his own games.  Probably, possibly, Sam would find it _distasteful_ but maybe _necessary_ to use Castiel now as Castiel has used him, in the past.  He might think that there is no way back into Dean's soul, but through Cas.  He might be desperate.  He might have clutched his hands in his hair, and wanted his brother back, not realizing that his brother has not left him, only _become._  Sam might be willing to do what is distasteful, but necessary.  He has died, when it was necessary, after all.  He has condemned himself to Lucifer, and the Cage.  When it was necessary.  It is not necessary now, but he doesn’t know that.  He might only want to save his brother.  He might be willing to do anything.

Mumbling grimly to himself, Castiel steps carefully to the dormitory wing of the bunker, where all the bedchambers reside, holding his arms close to his chest to make himself small in the looming spaces.  He eyes the dark dormitory hallway, and casts out another net of power.  It sparkles, golden, on the Men of Letters sigils on each of the doors, but these offer general protection from the darkness only, and will not obstruct or harm him.

Standing still at the end of the dark hallway, not really wanting to walk down it though he has proven it safe (it will be so loud, his footsteps will be so loud, the bunker is so empty), he acknowledges that Sam does, likely, have the disposition, and the means, to use Castiel as a pawn in a strategic maneuver.  Castiel has not counted Sam as an ally since he summoned Dean away, that first time, and Sam likely does not consider Castiel an ally either, having parted terms with him with demons that Castiel summoned shrieking for his blood.  The fear and the possibility turn over each other like a bitter root on his tongue.  Sam would use him, if he thought the ends justified it.  Sam could.

But… Sam did not bind him, when he had his Name on Castiel’s body.  He did not banish him, or hurt him.  He did not twist Castiel’s heart and tell him he wouldn’t stop until Dean was convinced to free him.  Instead a tear hid itself behind his eyelid and he dropped his head and looked ashamed when he made Castiel confess his love for Dean.  He didn’t act like he was Cas’ puppetmaster then.  He asked whether Castiel was ok and acted like he was Castiel’s friend.   

This chain of logic seems sound to Castiel, and it grounds him.  Sam had his chance,  or thought he did, when he had his Name on Cas’ arm.  His benevolence then should earn him some trust, at least.  Trust enough that maybe Castiel does not have to fear the worst.  Thus assessed and decided, Castiel steps up in front of Sam's door.  He nonetheless _carefully_ inspects the door and the air around it, with eyes and a soft spell cast over before touching it.  His caution reveals nothing; Sam's door is just a door.  Maybe Dean is right.  Maybe he is a _shade_ too paranoid.  Maybe he should trust Sam.  Maybe he could.  He exhales his held breath and goes inside.

It’s kind of strange, inside, because he has never been in Sam’s room without Sam in it before.  The plaid shirts hanging from corners and the open, scribbled notepads and the uneven stacks of books from the library are all there, but Sam is not.  And it's not just his body that is missing, it's his animus, the thoughtfulness and fairness (and since the siege, hardness) that cast from Sam's eyes.  Castiel feels a little guilty, in here, without those eyes on him, like he is skulking, and he supposes that, in fact, he is.

He wonders what it would be like to be in Dean’s room, without Dean.  Much colder, he thinks.  Much darker.  Dean lights up a room, any room, he is in.  And draws Castiel towards him, with his heat, his light.  Cas has been in _their_ room in Hell without Dean before, of course, but never in a room that was only Dean’s, like the one in the bunker.  He wonders if it would feel as strange as being in Sam’s room without Sam.  Maybe more strange, more like he was betraying some implicit trust?  Or less strange, like he was more at home, more welcomed?  He puts this question out of his mind by resolving to find out for certain, by visiting Dean's room, when he is done re-packing Sam’s bag.  

He kneels by Sam's bed, and, upending the bag over the comforter, he empties it, and all its pockets, completely.  He searches for secret pockets and finds only one, and divests it of the small knife and phial of salt inside.  He makes two piles out of the contents of the bag:  one pile of clothes, socks, underwear, things that can go back inside.  Most of these are some variety of plaid, he notices, with a slight smile.  The second pile is of weapons, books, arcana, that have to be left behind.  Most of _these_ have to do with werewolves; the weapons are of silver, the books are of wolf-lore, and the arcana can bind elements of the beast.  They are less relevant to demons, but still too dangerous for Sam to have in the Pit.  Castiel has seen what he did with only berry juice, he is not paranoid to fear what Sam could do with a weapon of silver and command of beast magic.

Castiel returns the safe pile to the bag and then fills the remainder of the now empty space with a couple of extra plaid shirts, Sam’s pillow, and a pair of slippers he sees sticking out from underneath Sam’s bed.  He zips up the re-filled bag, and stands, to leave.        

He pauses in Sam’s doorway.  Even having examined the bag and packed it himself specifically to be harmless, he still imagines all the ways Sam could hurt him with it.  He cannot risk Sam hurting Dean, or trying to “cure” him, or taking him away from Castiel, again.  So he thinks, hard, about what could go wrong with this bag and its contents.  He imagines Sam taking the strap off of the bag and trying to choke Castiel with it; Sam shoving the bag down over his head, trying to suffocate him.  He imagines Sam drawing out a banishing sigil with the toothpaste and trying to banish him; Sam trying to consecrate the water in the shampoo and burn him with it.  He hates it that these are the scenarios he imagines with Sam.  He hates that he is not imagining Sam eating breakfast with him, or Sam sitting down with him in the library and reading with him about ancient ways.  But these scenarios, upsetting though they may be, are at least moderately plausible.  Dean thinks Castiel is paranoid, yes,  but Dean also knows that this ability, to predict and counter and counter-predict the enemy, is the reason Castiel is alive.

And Dean would not argue with Castiel that Sam is _dangerous_ , he is _resourceful_.  He has proved that again and again.  He has been victorious in so many situations where he should have been defeated.  He defeated Lucifer with nothing but his heart and a green plastic army man, that, as far as Castiel knows, does not have any magical properties at all.  Sam cannot be treated lightly.  Not if Dean is to continue to rule, and Cas to kneel beside him.  As it should be.  As he wants with all his heart.

Castiel is frozen in Sam’s doorway, eyes narrow, thinking about taking the strap off the duffel, repacking all of Sam’s stuff in a paper bag, taking out the toothpaste and the shampoo; he is undecided about what to do.  But he realizes that no matter what he does, Sam will _still_ be resourceful, and dangerous-- he didn’t have _anything_ and he got his Name on Castiel.  There is nothing for Castiel to do but to _trust_ , he finally decides, again.  Just as when he decided to enter the bunker, wary of traps though he was.   _Trust,_ again has to be his mantra.  He has to try to believe that it is _Sam_ that will prevent Sam from hurting him, not overbearing vigilance on his part.  If Sam wants to hurt him, Sam will find a way.  He has to believe that Sam doesn’t _want_ to hurt him.  He has to try to believe that.  He knows that is what Dean wants.  So he doesn’t remove the strap from the duffel.  He doesn’t cut a hole in it to let himself breathe, if Sam tries to suffocate him.  He doesn’t remove the toothpaste, or the shampoo.  He forces himself to remember that Sam didn't hurt him, or even try, when he had his Name on his arm.  That Sam had been the one to insist that Cas wash the Name off.  

Cas adjusts the bag over his shoulder, as is, stuffed with plaid, and walks down the hall, to Dean’s room.

He finds himself holding his breath, paused in front of Dean's door, just as he was at Sam's, but not for the same reason.  No, now he is afraid that he will open the door, and it will smell like Dean, but it will be empty and bring him low.  He is afraid of how cold he will get when he scents Dean in the air and can't find him.  He is afraid of how he will _need_ so much that his heart will turn to water and run down from his eyes.  Tears are usually hot but these will be cold.  So cold.  Without Dean.  

He will enter Dean’s room and smell Dean and Dean will not be there and then his fingers will become numb with cold, clumsy like blocks of ice, until Dean comes back to him, to scorch him again.  He looks down, holds his hand out in front of his face like he is high and hopes to see through it.  Dean has scorched him so many times, but his fingertips are not charred, or blackened.  They are rosy and perfect.  Because Dean has kissed them too, not only burned.  With soft lips like desert flowers, that soothe and heal.  Dean will not let him be cold.  Dean will not let him be scarred.  Dean will only hold him and keep him and take care of him.  He promised.  He promised.

Castiel forces himself to breathe, and to push open the door.  It does smell like Dean inside.  Woodsmoke and leather.  And, just, stale alcohol and blood.  Castiel sniffs, a twitch of his nose.  Dean doesn't smell like alcohol anymore.  Blood when he has been on the racks, maybe, but not when he is in their room, safe and warm under Cas’ perfect fingers.  He heals too fast now, to bleed.

In here, in Dean’s room, is a smell that is Dean, and is not Dean.  It comforts Castiel, because it is familiar, it is what he loves. But It hurts his heart at the same time, because it is full of Dean's pain, and associated with that, heavy and hard as high stone cliffs, Castiel's regret.  

Why did he leave Dean here, alone, without him, to bleed and hurt, for so long?  He knew that he loved Dean.  From the moment he saw him, in Hell, shining, beautiful, righteous and broken and still resisting, he knew, even though he barely knew what love was, then.  And he knew that Dean was hurting here in his room, in the long nights; even if he hadn't been able to see the bruises on this face and the gashes on his knuckles.  Even if there were no marks on his body at all, Dean's pain was always as clear to Castiel as the ray of a lighthouse on a clear night.  And always as bathed in darkness.  Castiel loved him and knew that he hurt and wanted to heal him, and hold him, but he did not.  To his shame, he did not.

Too, he knew that Dean loved him.  He was as sure of that as that the sun would rise in the morning; he did not stay away because he was unsure of Dean's feelings.  He knew.  At least since Purgatory, when he heard Dean’s prayers.  Desperate and afraid, and filled with longing.  Every night.   _Where are you, Cas?  I need you.  Come back to me, goddammit._ He prayed _I need you_ and he meant _I love you_ and he didn't rest a single moment in Purgatory without offering that prayer up to the burnt, empty sky.  And Castiel heard those prayers, every one, and every one made him shake, and try to run farther, faster, no matter how exhausted he was, to hide that love, so bright, so dangerous, from the ravenous mouths of Purgatory, from their jealousy and misery and hate, from their teeth and claws.  He couldn’t let them find Dean, and snuff out that light, that beautiful light.  The only light in the world.  It would have ended Castiel, if it had been put out.  Or, he told himself as he ran, his ragged trench coat flapping behind him, if it were tainted by Castiel’s sin.  For in Purgatory Castiel was one of the creatures, too, unclean and impure and doomed.  Had he not sinned?  Had he not been Proud?  Was Purgatory not the place of his final atonement?  And so he heard Dean’s prayers, every one, and he _ran_.    

Dean found him anyway.  Dean found him anyway, far and fast as he ran.  And Dean embraced him.  Dean embraced him even after Castiel ran from him and hid from him and left him for dead in a world of monsters.  Dean found him anyway.  Dean embraced him anyway.  And that was a different way that Castiel knew Dean loved him, different from the prayers.  And still he did not embrace Dean in return.  He asks himself why, has asked himself why a million times.  But the question echoes disingenuous in the cavity of his mind, even to himself.  He knows why he fisted his hand instead of embracing Dean on the shore of the river in Purgatory where Dean finally found him.  Fear.  Fear is why.  He was afraid.

After they escaped, he imagined it, so many times, how it could be different. How he would come to Dean, confess to him in the dark.  It would start with Dean here, in this room in the bunker, alone, drinking from the neck of a bottle of Jack Daniels to numb himself enough to dig stitches into some wound in his own arm.  Castiel imagined that he would appear, wings ruffling behind him, and take the bottle from Dean, though Dean’s hands and lips would chase after it.  He would set it aside, and then take Dean’s wounded arm in his hands.  He would cover the wound with light, and when it was healed he would stroke his fingers over it, reverently.   _‘Dean,’_ he would whisper, and Dean would look at him, eyes glassy from the alcohol and the pain and maybe, maybe from something else.

‘ _Dean,_ ’ he would whisper again, like there was a continuation to what he wanted to say that he just couldn’t voice.  And he would hold Dean’s eyes with his own, blue on green, like he had so many times, and close the distance between them, so slowly, giving Dean every chance to move away, to push Castiel aside, to drop his head.

But Dean wouldn’t move away.  His lips would be right there, to meet Castiel’s, and they would be soft and smooth and a little cold from the blood loss, the alcohol.  Castiel would kiss them.  He didn’t really know how, but he would kiss Dean’s lips with his own until he couldn’t breathe, anymore.  

And Dean would kiss him back.  After a moment of lips moving on lips, he would slide his hand up Castiel’s back, over his trenchcoat, finding the place where his wings join his body without even being able to see them, and hold him close.   _Castiel_ , he would say, almost a sob, between kisses.  Like he had never said it before.  And he wouldn't have ever said it before, not like this.  He wouldn’t have to say anything else.  Castiel wouldn’t ask him to.  He had heard his prayers.  Castiel wouldn't ask for anything more.  He would only let the moment run on forever, just like that, in his imagination.  Lips on lips.  A hand brushing the base of his wings, in the dark.  Perfect.   

But Castiel imagined it the other way, too, sometimes, if a hunt went bad and Dean lashed out at him.  The way where, when his lips touched Dean’s, Dean’s body became rigid against him.  The way where Dean pushed him away and yelled at him, “What the hell, Cas?”  He would be angry.  Not because Cas kissed him, because he wanted that too and could never deny it, his lips and eyes and prayers had given him away far too many times for denial.  No, he would be angry because Cas broke the covenant that he clung to desperately, where they pretended like they didn't have a love between them that could split open the earth.  A love he was afraid would swallow him whole, grind him to pieces when the earth closed up around them again.  He would be angry that Castiel had taken away the covenant that was keeping him safe, keeping the earth solid beneath his feet, keeping him whole.

“Dean,” Cas said in this corner of his imagination, too, raising his hands up in front of him, begging.  But it wouldn’t matter.  It would be too late.  Everything was broken.

“Get out,” Dean would say, hanging his head, pointing to the door.

“Dean, please,” Castiel would say again, and his voice would be pleading, and his heart would be breaking.  

“Get.  Out.”  Dean would say, not listening, a hand coming up to hide his face.  And it would be a tragedy because they would both know, they would _both know_ that there was nothing in the world Dean wanted more than Castiel in his arms, but that now the moment was broken and he would never, ever, have it. Because Castiel would obey him.  The tears would already be burning hot down his cheeks before he got to the door, but he would obey.  He would obey.  He would get out.  He would leave his vessel behind and become a dark star, heavy, black, eating the light, and he would never return.  He would be lonely out in the cold of space, until the end of time, without Dean praying to him.  But it wouldn't matter.  Nothing would matter.  Nothing would be as cold and heavy as his heart, a frozen black diamond.  But he would obey.         

That is why Castiel had been afraid.  That is why Dean bled and drank alone.  To Castiel's great shame.  Because the fear of that possibility was all-encompassing, obliterating, catastrophic, and it snuck its dark fingers around Castiel’s heart and squeezed, no matter how beautiful the other possibility was.  It was a coldness that was too much to bear.

Until the Mark took Dean, and it seemed that Dean was already lost to him, and there was nothing more left to lose.

He scowls, standing in Dean’s doorway.  Foolishness.  He should not have been afraid.  He was an Angel of the Lord.  How could love have hurt him?  He was made of love.  How could he have been such a coward?    

He chastises himself thus, calling himself a fool, but it is bravado, only.  Love could have hurt him.  Love could have _ended_ him.  If it had not been returned.

But Dean did not reject him, when the moment came.  Castiel takes a calming breath, and reminds himself of this.  Dean did not reject him.  Dean was brave.  Dean let Castiel see where his heart was, even if it meant that Castiel could break it.  

It calms him to remember it.  It calms some of the hurt, of smelling Dean's blood on the air.  To remember telling Dean for the first time that he loved him, and would love him when everyone else on earth was a dead, even if it were Dean that killed them.  To remember the anger fading from Dean's eyes, the angel blade tumbling from his hand in slow motion.  To remember how Dean kissed him, then, so gently.  Gentle as though he was made of spun glass, when Castiel’s face was still dripping blood from Dean’s own violence.  He didn't know what to do with his hands, he remembers.  They had hung limply at his sides.  Dean had taken his face in his own hands, and stroked at his jaw with his thumb, a bare pressure but so full of meaning, so overwhelmingly _gentle_ , holding so much and holding back so much.  But Castiel had not known what to do with his own hands.  He had just wanted to move his mouth, slowly, against Dean's, so he wouldn't be scared away.  His heart had been beating so fast.

He sits down on Dean's bed, cross legged, and closes his eyes and breathes in deeply, to remember.  Dean's lips had been soft.  His mouth had been warm.  Castiel had never had a kiss like that, before, in all his long years.  A kiss where it felt like the other person’s heart was beating into his mouth.  A kiss that felt like it could go on forever.  A kiss he had imagined a thousand times.  Lips that had called his name, in his dreams.

Dean still kisses him like that, sometimes.  Sometimes he is so gentle.  Castiel knows that that is what Dean likes. To wrap Castiel in softness.  To whisper in his ear that he is his sweet angel and he will protect him from everything in the world, forever.  To show him that he is precious.  To _love_ him.  He wishes that Dean were with him now.  To take him like that.  To cover him and kiss him slow, until he trembles and tears leak from his eyes and he clings to Dean like he is dying.

They've never been together, like that, in this room.  Maybe they should, Castiel thinks, to make it feel less sad.  Would that undo some of the loneliness that seeps through the concrete walls like tears?  Would it undo some of Castiel's regret?  When Dean and Castiel have been together for millennia, the few years they spent denying each other will seem short, like nothing, but now they feel long.  Too long.

He imagines them here, on this bed with corners that look like the were made with a ruler and the roughly woven olive drab bedspread.  Two bodies sinuous against each other, seeming to have too many arms, too many legs.  Writhing, like a basket of snakes.  Would their cries fill up the emptiness in this room?  Would they stick to the walls somehow and make them warmer?  It is Castiel’s fault that they are cold now, and bare of anything but weapons.  Castiel knows this in his heart.  Because he was afraid.  Because he was a coward.   

A tear tips out of his eye and he tips over the edge of being able to just sit here on this bed and bear the sadness.  He takes out his phone with shaking hands and sends Dean a text, as fast as he can.   _Love u_ .  He squints down at it.  Not enough.  He sends another one.   _I love you._  Still not enough.  He wishes that Dean could _feel_ it, feel what Castiel feels, how much Castiel loves him, all the time, unremitting, every second.  He wishes Dean could feel it the way Castiel can feel Dean, through his Name.  He sends another text.   _Always_.   

He knows that Dean is fighting the cultists, that he won’t look at his phone and see these probably until he is back in the Pit, when Castiel could just tell him himself, but… it makes him feel better.  For those words to be out there.  Real, not just in his head.  It's not _enough,_ not nearly enough, until his blood beats in Dean's heart, and Dean scorches him again, but it's better. He sniffs back his tear.

He had wondered, when he was in Sam’s room, whether being in Dean’s room without Dean would be comfortable or uncomfortable.  It is neither of those, he realizes now.  Being in this room, and not being able to touch Dean, to hold him, to whisper to him that he is loved and that he will never be alone again:  it only makes him sad.  Not comfortable or uncomfortable.  Only sad.  He can’t go back into the past, and comfort those lonely Deans that stitched themselves up on this bed.  He can’t pull them close.  They are lost to him, like his wings, and his grace, and all else that dwells in the past.

He stands from the bed and wipes his eyes.  He picks Sam’s bag back up.  When he exits, he shuts the door tight behind him.  This isn’t Dean’s room, anymore.  

\---Past---

_O Blessed Archangel Gabriel,_ Castiel prays.  He prays for intercession.  He prays for his brother to be alive, and to come to him, in his time of need.  He prays, and he shows his brother the desperation in his heart, and the jagged edges of his need for Dean.  He prays, and he sits back on his heels, to wait.  

He startles when, almost immediately, his phone rings.   _Gabriel?_ He thinks.  He scrambles for the phone.  It’s not ringing with Cherry Pie or Lemon or Brown Sugar, or any of Gabriel’s other sleazy favorites.  It’s just ringing.  He almost drops it when he sees the area code.  Kansas.  Lebanon.   _Dean._

“Dean?  Where are you?  Are you ok?”  His fingers are frantic on the phone.    _Thank you, Gabriel,_ he prays, not believing this is a coincidence.   _Thank you, brother._

His face falls when he hears the reply.  “No Cas, it’s Sam.”  

Sam.  ( _Gabriel's favorite,_ he thinks).  Not Dean on the other side of the line.  Sam, the person who is keeping Dean from him.  His voice goes blank and his mind dissociates from the phone call to try to keep him from screaming in frustration.  Screaming at Sam, who he now _knows_ is not his ally.  “ _Give him back to me, you meddling fool!  Give him back to me, or I will KILL YOU.”_ Screaming won’t help, he knows.  Screaming will make Sam think that he is right, that Dean and Cas have broken bad, that they need him to ride in on a white horse and save them from themselves.  Screaming won’t make Sam give Dean back, no matter what Castiel threatens, and what he would threaten would be too ugly to be forgotten by Sam, anytime soon.  

So he talks to Sam in a flat voice, like he is a robot.  He puts away all his emotions, because the only ones that are available to him right now are desperation and rage.  His vision becomes very narrow, just a pinprick in black, and he ignores how his hands are shaking where they hold the phone, two-handed, to his ear.  He doesn’t even really process what Sam is saying (something about wanting to know if Cas is ok?  Cas is NOT ok, Cas needs Dean, why is Sam even asking this, Cas is not the one who has been ripped away from his home, where he is safe) until he hears “Do you want to talk to him?”  

Cas heart pounds in his chest.   _Yes!  Yes I want to talk to him!  I want him, all of him, I want him back, I want him back NOW._ The breath he has been holding in tight, with his rage, rushes out of him.  “Yes.  Please, Sam, Yes.”  He closes his eyes when he says this, because he knows that through the flatness he has been forcing on his voice he sounds desperate, and he doesn’t want to sound desperate.  He doesn’t want Dean to hear him desperate.  He wants to be strong, for Dean.  He had his time to be weak.  He had his time in the bathtub.  He gave himself that time, and that time is over.  That was the time to be tears, and pain.  Now is the time to be strength, and steel.  For Dean.   

“Cas,” Dean’s voice, crackly and breaking and and far away from the phone, but there.  It tears into Castiel’s strong front, a little.  Like the tiny feet of moss that bring down cliff walls.  Just Dean’s voice, just saying his name, undoing him.  “Cas, I’m here.  I’m ok.  Sasquatch just has me pent up in the dungeon, but he’s harmless.”  Dean’s words are light, but it’s a false lightness.  It’s a balloon that can’t float away because it is tied to a cement block.  Dean is trying to be strong, for Cas, and Cas does not know if he can do the same.  

“How are you?  You ok, baby?”

Castiel doesn’t know how to answer this question.  It is such a simple question, but the answer is impossible.  Because there are two answers, and he can’t open his mouth to say either of them with the other clanging like a fire alarm in the back of his head.  One answer is:   _I’m not OK.  I’m not OK.  I’m afraid, and I’m cold and I hurt and I need you and I can’t breathe and I can’t think and I had to count in a bathtub for three days because I was losing my mind.  I am stuck in Hell without you and I have no weapons and no allies and I can’t even count all of my enemies and I am so weak, so so weak without you, and I NEED you._

The other answer is:   _I’m coming for you.  Nothing will keep me from you.  I have a plan.  I have objectives and sub-objectives.  I have assessed the situation and I have prayed for intercession.  I will gather our allies.  I will slay our enemies.  I will lift a fiery sword and with it I will destroy anyone or anything that tries to keep me from you.  NOTHING can keep me from you, because I am rage and I am light.  Hold your heart close, because I am coming and when I come it is going to be with the wrath of a stormy sea._

He cannot voice these answers, each so sharp and jagged that they would slice him in half, into pieces that could not put themselves back together.  But Dean is on the other side of the phone, and he can hear Dean’s breath, and he doesn’t know when he will hear it again.  So his mouth opens, and bypasses the whirling of his brain, and tells Dean about his body.  Tells Dean what he needs.  “I’m… Dean, I’m cold.  Without you.  Come back to me.”  He is cold, he realizes.  He dropped his blankets from his body when he knelt to pray to Gabriel and they are still puddled around his knees.  He shivers.    

“I will Cas, I promise, I will.”  Castiel hears movement, and when Dean speaks again he sounds like he is closer to the phone.  “You wearing your sweater, for me, baby?  To keep you warm?”  Dean’s voice is like molasses, so sweet, so deep.  Castiel feels like warm syrup is being poured over his rigid, freezing body.

“I’m… yes, Dean, I'm wearing it.  But… it's not enough.  Need you.  Need you here.”  He rubs the soft fabric on his forearm against the stubble of his cheek and tears leak from his eyes.  He’s choking back against sobs and he _hates it_ .  He doesn’t want to cry for Dean.  He wants _save_ Dean.  He wants to be Dean’s angel, bright and strong, keeping him safe from everything, always.  Isn’t he the shield of God, _Castiel?_

He wants to give in to the sobs and let Dean’s voice wash over him, warm and rough, as he tells him it will be ok. But he also wants to fight with blade and wings and grace, shining, through all of the Pit and across all of the Earth until he has Dean in his arms again.  He wants to wrap himself back up in the blankets at his knees and get back in the tub and not even count anymore, just stare at the shiny water fixtures with blank, wet eyes until Dean returns to him.  But he also wants to cut himself and make himself bleed and use the blood to do terrible magic that will fold the universe inside out until Dean is back beside him. He is cold, he is afraid.  He is angry, he is dangerous.  He is weak, he is needy.  He is powerful, he is terrifying.  He hovers, between states.  Tears leak from his eyes and his hands clench the phone so tight it could break.    

“I know baby, I'm coming, I promise, just gotta get Sam off my case first.”

“Dean,” he starts.  He wants to say, _“I will come for you.”_  He wants to cry “ _Please, I need you_ .”  He wants to say _“Nothing will keep me from you.  Nothing.”_ He wants to beg, “ _Promise me you will be with me soon.”_  But Dean is talking again before Castiel can decide.   

“You get some of our blankets and you get in our bed and you stay there.  You stay there, ok?  It's safe there; no one can get in there to get you…”  And yes, Cas wants to do that.  He wants to just listen to Dean’s honey voice and feel it rush over him like warm water, he wants to stay warm like this, warm and safe and in their bed where it smells like Dean until Dean comes back to him.

But this is what makes the scales unbalance, and allows Castiel to choose one state of the two that are pulling him apart:  Castiel knows that as soon as Dean is off the phone, and Cas can’t hear him any more, and there is no honey voice dripping over him, the cold will come back, and the fear, and the spinning in his mind.  And he knows that he can’t bear it.  He knows this, he has learned it over the last three days.  He _can’t_ .  He _won’t_.     

He is going to become Dean’s angel again.  That is the only choice.  That is the only choice he can bear.  He is going to come for Dean, in fire and light and righteousness.  He is going to be unstoppable, he is going to be lightning and thunder and the wrath of the Lord.  He _has to_ .  He does not know any other way.  He does not know how to break.  He sits up straighter than he has since Dean left, and he opens his mouth to tell Dean this.  “Dean,”   _I’m coming for you._

But Sam has disconnected the phone.

Cas sets it down on his lap very carefully.  He’s still crying, and he lets himself cry himself out.  Sobbing, ugly crying, bent in half on his knees, tearing at his hair and screaming and scratching at his face.  With cold intention, detached from the shivering mess of his body, he lets the weakness bleed out of him, with the tears, squeezing himself like a wet rag to make himself dry.  

He calms, gradually.  His heart turning into a tiny stone, in the center of his chest.  But it’s not frozen anymore.  It’s _burning_ .  So much that it almost hurts, the flames licking out all the way to his numb fingertips and needling them as the feeling comes back.  He wipes his eyes, his nose, his face, and he picks the phone back up again.  He is still kneeling, in the same spot where he prayed to Gabriel, and he prays to him again now, in thanks, because he believes that Gabriel's hand was shown in this.  In helping Sam trust Dean enough to let him talk to Castiel, in helping Dean convince Sam to call in the first place.  He knows where Dean is now, and that he is safe, at least temporarily.  This is enough.  He will not ask Gabriel to risk more.  He stands.  The ache in his crumpled body fades away, behind the promise of action.   _Dean,_ he thinks, _I’m coming for you_.  

And he dials.  666.

    

\---Present---

When Castiel returns to Sam’s cell with the re-packed duffel, Sam is laying back on his shelf with his hands laced behind his head, just like Castiel imagined he might be.  Though more innocent, than in Castiel’s imagination.  His eyes are closed but he is clearly awake, his fingers tapping against the back of his head, deep in thought.  Castiel drops the duffel on the floor.  

Sam startles and sits up, twisting around towards the sound.  “Cas!” he says, “Jesus, you startled me.”

“Apologies, Sam.  I’ve been… too inside my own mind.”  He gestures at the duffel.  “I brought you some things, from the bunker.”   _Mostly plaid_.    

Sam crosses the room and picks up his bag.  He’s subtle when he feels for the secret pocket, subtle in his disappointment that the knife inside is gone, but Castiel notices anyway.  Sam opens the bag up and pulls out a clean plaid shirt.  He has been wearing the one he has on, burnt orange and red, for days, since Dean and Castiel summoned him to the Pit.  “You mind?” he says, as he pulls out a clean pair of jeans and starts to unbutton his dirty shirt.  His new one is black and green.

“Of course not,” Cas says, and turns his back.  He does not think about Sam strangling him with the clean shirt while his back is turned.  He _does not_.  

“Thanks,” Sam says.  “So, I was thinking, maybe we could go to the Library today?”  

“Of course Sam.”   _He’s not going to strangle you.  At least not before you take him to the Library._  “You will like it there.  It has many volumes that are not available anywhere else, not even in Heaven.  And the way Dean has it set up…” Castiel can’t quite think of how to describe it.  “You’ll like it.”  

“Yeah, Dean said that too.”  He finishes changing, and walks forward until he is in front of Castiel, in his field of vision again.

“Dean knows you very well.”  

Sam acknowledges this with a nod.  “I want to do some research.”

Castiel can guess what Sam wants to research, but he answers anyway, “On what topic?”

“I want to know why I couldn’t command you with my Name.”  

This is not, actually, what Cas expected.  Cas had expected a two word answer, grim.  ‘The Mark.’  His mouth closes on the answer he had prepared to give, which was “I know you have been studying the Mark for months, but there may be information available in the Pit library that you have not been able to access on Earth.  Cain’s journals not the least of it.”  Instead he says, rather dumbly, “Ok, “ and he opens a portal to the throne room, just to give himself time to think.  He doesn’t have to make flashy portals to travel around the Pit, he can just transport directly if he wants, but making this one gives him a moment to recover his train of thought.

When the portal opens, a circle of dark blue light as high as Sam, with brighter lights spinning and flashing as if from the other side, Sam doesn’t even pick up volume 2 of Cain’s journal, to take with him.  He eyes Castiel thoughtfully, shrugs minutely, and steps through.  Castiel follows him.  He is surprised, that Sam trusts him this much, to step through a portal without being able to see the other side.  Though, he also supposes, there are few places he could transport Sam worse than the Pit of Hell.

Through the portal, they arrive at the entrance to the throne room.  Sam steps backwards, off balance with vertigo for a moment because of how much larger, grander, the throne room is than the 10 by 10 cell he has been living in for days.  “Woah.  Cas-- what-- where--”  

“Dean’s throne room.”  Castiel answers.

“Dean’s…” Sam repeats, blearily, looking around.  His eyes take in the sight of the throne room; its black marble floor, the the demonic runes oozing a putrid, sulfurous light, the ceiling that arches up and up into mist.  And the demons, waiting for Dean’s command.  He stills and looks at Cas with a furrowed brow.  “Demons.”  

Sam’s not surprised that there are demons, of course, this is Hell.  And he’s not afraid, or he’s not showing it; he’s seen demons before, more than there are in the throne room now.  But his voice is still grim.   

Castiel looks around too, thinking about how the throne room would appear to him, if he were Sam.  Human, and seeing it for the first time.  It's huge and dark, the throne raised and sharp and centered at the crux of pulsing red ley lines.   _Evil_ , he thinks.   _It looks like powerful evil is done here_ .  Ordered by Dean and Castiel, and carried out by the demons waiting in front of the dias in their true forms.  Castiel shivers.   _Hideous._ He is numb to the horror of their true forms, he realizes; he barely notices them, anymore.  They’re like flowers on wallpaper:  they aren’t beautiful-- _not like Dean--_ but they can’t hurt him.

One of them has noticed Castiel and Sam’s arrival, and breaks off from the loose crowd hovering around the dias.  Castiel recognizes him, Oraxes.  In his true form he is shorter than Castiel, obscenely muscled, fingers long with twisted black claws.  Greasy hair is stringy and thin on his scalp.  A tumor grows out of his neck, grey and bulging, with yellowed teeth embedded in it.  Castiel can’t tell if it looks like he has been bitten, or more like the teeth have grown up out of the tumor.  He ignores it, and looks Oraxes in his eyes.  Red eyes, seeping pus.  He does not speak in acknowledgement.  

“Highness,” Oraxes greets him, and his voice is a screech.  Sam shifts subtly closer to Castiel, and keeps one eye on Oraxes, and one eye on Cas, following his lead.  

“Demon.  Why do you approach us?”  In Castiel’s voice is the hint that there is no possible reason Oraxes could give that would be adequate for interrupting his walk through the throne room with Sam.  

“Highness, I--” the demon’s eyes dart to Sam.  It seems that he is having a hard time looking at Castiel.  Harder than normal, even.  Like his eyes keep slipping to Sam.  “I--”  He stutters, and it also seems like he doesn’t really have a reason for approaching Castiel.  Indeed, it is unusual for a demon to approach Cas without being summoned.  Because there _are_ few adequate reasons to interrupt him.  Because the demons fear him, without exception, and drawing his eye onto their lives.  Because he can meet out punishments that the Master would never even imagine.  That no one has ever imagined.  Oraxes eyes waver to Sam again.  “The Master is away.  I wanted to... “ he is grasping to come up with something plausible.  “I wanted to offer my services to you.  If there is anything you need.  Highness.”  But he is looking at Sam.  

Oraxes is transparent.  He does not want to offer his services to Castiel.  He does not want to be in the same _dimension_ as Castiel, if he can avoid it.  His interest is in Sam.  It could not be more clear.  Castiel’s eyes narrow, and he remembers:  Sam killed Oraxes’ brother. Eschates.  Oraxes’ broodmate.  Crowley sent Eschates after Sam and Dean, years ago, and Sam killed him.  Sam probably doesn’t even remember; certainly Sam never knew his name, as he does not know the names of most of the demons he kills.  Neither the names nor the Hellish family trees.  But Castiel knows.  Castiel remembers.  His eyes narrow on Oraxes.   _Fool._

Oraxes actually licks a sharp tooth with his black tongue, as he now stares openly at Sam.  Sam, to his credit, stares right back at him.   _Brave_ , Castiel thinks, admiringly.   _Like his brother._

“You have no services that I have any interest in, creature,” Castiel says darkly.  “Remove yourself from our presence.”  And he steps forward, clearly expecting Oraxes to be out of the space in front of him before his body occupies it.  Oraxes stumbles backwards, nearly ending up on the floor, in his haste to comply.  

Sam follows, but looks back over his shoulder at Oraxes, jaw set.  Castiel puts a hand on the small of his back, and firmly directs him towards the library.  “What was that guy’s problem?”  Sam asks, finally turning his head forward and moving.  He does not see that Oraxes continues to stare at him, at his back, his red eyes narrowing and his tongue continuing to sweep over rotten teeth, his clawed hand twitching towards the curved dagger at his hip.    

“Sometimes, they try to rise in Dean’s esteem by offering themselves to me,” Castiel says.  This is true, technically, he has not lied to Sam, though of course that is not what Oraxes’ ‘problem’ was.  His real ‘problem’, if Cas were to put it bluntly, was trying to decide whether it was worth the punishment Castiel would give him if he killed Sam right there on the spot.  (The answer to that, Castiel is certain, is _no_ , but none of the demons in Oraxes’ brood are known for their wisdom.  Eschates was foolish enough to stand up when Crowley ordered demons out after the Winchester brothers, after all.)  

“Offering…” Sam tries the word out on his tongue.  “Do you ever... Do you ever, take them up on that?”  

Castiel fixes Sam with a severe glare.  “Of course not.  They are as stupid as they are ugly.  What I said is true.  They have no _services_ that are of any interest to me.”

Sam persists.  “But Baal… he said you sent him.  Before I killed him.  When you--”

Castiel closes his eyes briefly, and when he opens them, his gaze at Sam is softer.  “We sent Baal out to die.  That is the only service he could offer us.”  

Sam swallows.

The corner of Castiel’s mouth ticks up in a rueful smile.  “I wanted to send Crowley.”  

Sam smiles too, though his eyes are grim.  “I probably wouldn’t have killed him.  Sometimes,” he pauses as they reach the door to the library, and Castiel holds a suddenly glowing hand up to unlock it.  “Sometimes I feel kind of sorry for him, you know?”  

“I do not know.  He is always trying to get me to deal with him to allow him to kiss Dean.  He looks at Dean… too familiarly.”  

Sam nods, but he doesn’t reply.  His eyes are wide as he takes in the Pit Library, and its exact similitude to the Kansas City Public Library of his childhood.  Castiel’s smile returns.  

“This,” Sam says, raising an arm out and gesturing at the stacks.  “This is just…”

“I told you you would like it,”

“This is not what I was expecting.”

“It didn’t always look like this,” Castiel explains.  “Before Dean was in charge it was more… more like the throne room.  More blood, more candles.  But he prefers it like this.  Says he can keep his head clear here, better.”

Castiel moves forward into the room, and pulls one of the ungainly keyboards towards him.  “You can actually use the computers.  You can really use them to search the Library,” he explains, luxuriating as the air conditioning ruffles his hair.  He waits for Sam to come and look over his shoulder, then he types in, deliberately, ‘curse:  Mark of Cain’.  The ancient computer’s hard drive actually makes a whirring noise as it spins up, and the library interface software goes blank for a second before a list of results starts appearing one by one.  

“Cas, this is amazing,” Sam says, shouldering Castiel out of the way and sitting down, as the list keeps getting longer and longer.  

“Dean told you you would like it, too,” Castiel says proudly.  

Sam barely hears him.  “Some of these titles I’ve read, some of them I only recognize, and some of them I’ve never even heard of.  This is… thanks Cas.  Thanks.”  He pulls a stack of scrap papers over towards him, quarters of several different colored sheets that at one time were flyers on their printed sides:  advertisements for adult education classes, lost dog announcements, coloring book pages.  He picks up one of the golf pencils that sits in a box beside them, and starts writing down Dewey decimal notations.   

“Of course, Sam.”  He puts one hand on the back of Sam’s chair.  He feels a tingle in his neck as someone else works the opening spell on the library door.   _Oraxes_ .  The miasma of his magic is familiar, after their encounter in the throne room.   _Fool demon_ , Castiel thinks, coming for Sam while Castiel is _right there_ .  Not gathering backup, not spreading the word that Sam Winchester is at large in the Pit.  Acting like what he is, a creature of chaos, and rage; no subtlety, no restraint, no foresight.   _Fool_ , Castiel thinks again.  He touches his hip, where the golden dagger he was flipping in the throne room yesterday rests long and sharp against his thigh.  A warm blush rises in his chest.   _I will end you_.

“If you like, I can fetch those for you,” Castiel says, gesturing at the first sheet of decimals that Sam has filled.  “I know where they are.  You can keep searching.”  

Sam pushes his hair back from his eyes, and slides the dense list towards Castiel.  “Thanks, Cas,” he says, not even taking his eyes off the computer.  “Thanks.”

“It’s nothing,” Castiel says, and shrugs.  He picks up the piece of paper, and walks casually back to the stacks.  As soon as he is obscured among them, he turns around, so he can watch Oraxes.  The demon’s eyes linger on the spot where Castiel has disappeared into the stacks, as if waiting to see if he will re-appear immediately.  When he does not, Oraxes moves, agile and quiet, directly towards Sam’s back.  Sam is so engrossed in the still-growing list of resources on the Mark, that he does not hear him coming over the whir of the ancient hard drive, even when Oraxes is almost upon him.                      

Nor does Sam hear Castiel, even more silent, emerging from the stacks and closing on Oraxes.   “What do you think you’re doing, scum,” Castiel growls as he catches the demon in a chokehold from behind the moment Oraxes draws his blade.  

Oraxes goes still immediately, recognizing Castiel's voice.  He drops his weapon.  “Mercy, highness,” he shrieks, high and afraid, like nails on a chalkboard.  He might as well have shrieked it at a brick wall.  Castiel doesn't even pause; he slits the demon’s throat with Dean’s golden knife; it cuts the skin like an overripe tomato and the gold blade sheens through the film of blood it draws with it.  He drops the corpse on the floor of the library.  

“Fuck, Cas!” Sam shouts, jumping up from his chair as blood continues to spew out of the corpse on the ground, which Castiel begins to ignore as soon as it is dropped.  “What the fuck!”  

“I knew he would try for you, after he saw you in the throne room,” Cas says, shaking his head, as if he can't believe the demon’s stupidity, its predictability.  “You killed his brother, you know, he and Eschates were hatched in the same brood.”

“Eschates?  What?  Hatched?”  Sam has killed a lot of demons in his day, and he usually doesn’t stop and ask them their names first.  He didn’t realize Castiel was keeping track.  Of his kills, at least; he wouldn't be surprised if he had a whole scrapbook of Dean's.

“The one with the underbite and the Brooklyn accent.  You killed him during that case in Michigan last Fall.  Crowley sent him after you, when you were looking for the Staff of Kings.”

“The Staff of… What?  And so you just…”

“He was going to come after, you, sooner or later, now that he knew you were down here.  The way he was looking at you, licking his teeth.  So obvious.”  Cas sounds so disgusted.  “Better sooner and when I was watching him, than later in a surprise.  So I gave him a chance.  Or, he thought it was a chance, it wasn't really, don't worry.  And now he can’t tell any of the others that you are here.”

“You left me here as _bait?”_ Sam is a little indignant, but still more shocked by the demon corpse bleeding out at Castiel’s feet and Castiel’s utter disregard for it.

“You were never in any danger.”  Castiel sounds disappointed that Sam would question his competence as a chaperone, like that. “And I do know where those books are,” he adds, as though that makes it any better.  “I've pulled them before.”   

For his part, Sam thinks that Cas is being way too casual about this.  “Cas, you could have _told_ me; a little ‘hang out here for a minute, that demon is going to come in to try to kill you but don’t worry I’ll get to him first,’ at least.  I’m not a rookie, I wouldn’t have blown your cover.”

“What would have been the purpose of that?  Then you would have been momentarily frightened.  Unnecessarily, too.  This way you didn’t have to worry.”  He explains it like it could not be more obvious, voice still full of disappointment, now perhaps that Sam has not grasped his tactics.  

Sam thinks that it would take more than _one_ anonymous demon to make him ‘frightened’, given that he already _knows_ that he is in Hell, and that that is where _all_ the demons live, and that he has literally _been_ Lucifer, but he gives up the point anyway, because he realizes that there is no utility in arguing with Cas about tactics; now, or ever. When Cas decides on a plan of action, suicidal or foolish or crazy though it may be, nothing Sam can say has ever been able to change his mind.  Only Dean has ever been able to do that, and even then only sometimes.

So Sam’s mind moves on to fixate on another bizarre detail in the bouquet of bizarre details in this bizarre scenario.  

“He called you ‘Highness’.  I thought Crowley was the King, around here.”  Oraxes had called Castiel that before, in the throne room, too.

Though Castiel had no problem whatsoever leaving Sam for demon bait and even less with cutting the demon’s throat from behind while it begged him for mercy, this actually seems to make him embarrassed, and the barest hint of a blush rises to his cheeks.  “Dean makes them call me that.”  He scowls a little bit.  

“Dean makes them call you--”

“They have to call him ‘Master,’ that is his title, but they all started calling me ‘fucktoy.’  Dean didn’t like that.”  Cas makes a delicate face when he says ‘fucktoy’, like he is a 90 year old church lady saying ‘hip hop’.  Cas is clearly very uncomfortable, and there is still a _corpse_ involved here, but Sam finds himself becoming amused in spite of himself.   

“They called you--”

“He killed them if he heard them say it, of course, or even if he only heard rumors that they had said it, but they had to call me something and it burns them to say my true name, because it is of Heaven.”  

“Wait, I'm still stuck on… they called you _what?”_ Sam just wants to hear Cas say ‘fucktoy’ again.  

Castiel ignores him, he is clearly mortified by this story and just wants to tell it and get it over with as quickly as possible.  “So he ordered them all to call me ‘Highness,’ and nothing else.  They can’t disobey him, if he orders them, because of his mandate.  He ordered them to call me that and now they have to.  They can’t even call me ‘he’, or ‘him’; when I punish them it’s ‘Mercy, Highness,” like you just heard, if Dean asks them who they are going to obey when he is away it’s “Highness, Master,” if Crowley asks them who sent them out to interrupt one of his contracts it’s, ‘Highness, Highness.’  That annoys Crowley exceptionally, which I suspect is part of why Dean picked it, though if I insinuate as much he just smirks and says ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about, Cas.’ It’s unbelievably aggravating, I almost prefer ‘fucktoy’.”  Cas’ eyes are closed by the time he finishes this recitation.

“Wow, Cas, that’s,” Sam is trying really hard to keep a straight face, but it’s not working.  “I mean, that’s really, wow.”  

Cas huffs, and Sam just smiles wider.  He’s missed Cas.  He’s even missed Dean acting like a child to flirt with Cas and Cas being surly about it, as much as it used to annoy him.  “Thanks for getting him for me,” he says, looking at the dead demon, trying to make Cas feel a little better, closer to how good Sam feels in this moment-- better than he’s felt in a long time, actually.  

Cas looks up.  “You are welcome, Sam.  Of course.  You are safe here.  I know you have your doubts, but I will show you; they won’t touch you, I promise.”  The disappointment is gone from his voice, and now he just sounds like Castiel:  serious and righteous and sure.

Sam swallows.  “Thanks, Cas.”

Castiel nods.  “We should be able to study uninterrupted for a while now.  I would like that very much, if you are not too upset about what has happened here.”  He gestures at the corpse.  “I too… am curious about the results of your Name being placed on my body.”  Finally, the answer to Sam's request that he was too surprised to provide when he opened the portal to the throne room.

“I would like that too, Cas.”  Sam _has_ missed Castiel.  Dean is an exceptional hunter, the best of his generation, maybe the best ever, but he never really got enthusiastic about the research part as much as Sam.  Sam’s always enjoyed being able to share that, with Castiel, and he's missed it.  He's done a lot of research in the last months, but all of it alone, and it's not the same.   And now, to get to read with Castiel again, in the library of Hell itself, words and deeds lost to the eyes of humans and angels or maybe never even seen by them before. It fills up a little part of him he had been pretending didn't exist since he drew up the angel wards on the bunker, after the siege.  

“I'd like that a lot.”  He smiles at Cas, and gestures.  “Can we get rid of the corpse, first, though?”  He doesn’t enjoy reading with Cas enough to want to do it with a dead demon rotting on the floor, no matter how long he's been alone.  

“Of course.”      

 

\---Past---

Crowley answers on the second ring.  “Feathers.”  How does he manage to always sound so completely unsurprised by everything?  It is infuriating.  “Trouble in paradise?  I would have thought you'd have your tongue--”

Castiel doesn't know how Crowley recognized the number of his brand new cell phone, but he assumes it is some simple magic and he does not care.  He knows that this demonstration that he has information about Castiel that he should not have is only meant to put Cas off balance, as is the crude suggestion about Dean.  Castiel ignores both.

“Serpent.”  He tries, as best he can, to use the voice of an Angel of the Lord, a seraph ancient beyond ancient that can and will burn the eyes right out of Crowley's face for no other reason than that it is his duty, that Crowley is an abomination unto the Lord and can not be suffered to exist.  This voice, instead of the desperate voice of one of the Fallen who is trapped, outnumbered, and afraid.  Because Crowley will not help him for free, no matter what, but if he gets a whiff of that desperation, the price will be enormous.  And Crowley is perceptive.  Deadly perceptive.  

Crowley doesn't miss a beat.  “Assertive.  I like it, it's a good look on you, Feathers, much better than all the moping you caught from our squirrel, or, god forbid, the gooey eyes.”

Cas can play this role.  Angel of the Lord.  Smooth as stone and just as hard.  He played it for thousands of years.  Crowley's banter is venal, and beneath him.  Irrelevant.  He will ignore it.

“Dean's rule is in jeopardy--”.

“Not possible,” Crowley cuts him off, as dismissive as Castiel was trying to be dire.  “The mandate--”

Castiel will not show Crowley more respect than Crowley has shown him.  He interrupts in return.  “Sam Winchester has taken him and is holding him the bunker, where he plans to attempt to ‘cure’ him of the demonic strain.”

Crowley is actually silent for a moment.  Castiel thinks that Gabriel must have interceded again, truly it is a miracle, Hallelujah.  “No more black-eyed squirrel.  Pity.  I so prefer him that way.  And the alternatives, these demons that actually _want_ the Pit, not Hell’s best and brightest, I'm afraid.  A tad brutish, much too crude for my tastes.  Our boy surpasses them in every way.”

Castiel ignores the way Crowley keeps saying _our_ in reference to Dean. “Good.  Then you will assist me in bringing Dean back to the Pit.  Where he belongs.  Where he rules.”   _With me._   

“Ah, now I see.  Green eyes is in trouble so my phone rings.  His angel, his attack dog, Castiel, seraph of Heaven, Warrior of the Lord, needs help from… what did you call me?  Snake?  Worm?”  Crowley remembers exactly what Castiel called him.  

He calls him thus again.  “Serpent.”  Voice like poison.  “If you don’t want to help me, fine.  I’ll pray to Gabriel.”

“You’re bluffing.  Gabriel’s not alive.”  Crowley says it like he is sure of it, but he can't be sure.  No one can ever be sure, with Gabriel.

“I prayed to him to help me find Dean, and while my head was still bowed Sam called me to tell me he held Dean in the bunker.”

“Coincidence.  You think so too, or you would have already prayed to him again, instead of calling me.”  

Maybe this is true; maybe the story Castiel told himself about Gabriel being unwilling to show more of his hand is only a hopeful fiction.  Crowley is _too perceptive_.

“Maybe.  Maybe not.  I'll take my chances.  Goodbye Crowley--”

“So touchy, Feathers, relax.  I’m not saying I won’t help.  I’m just saying that you and the Hardy boys are going to have to at least leave some cash on the dresser before you leave in the morning.  A girl likes to feel appreciated, you know?”  

“What do you _want_ , Crowley,” he growls.  It always comes to this, with Crowley.  The deal.  He wishes he could just threaten to kill him if he doesn't help, but the threat would be empty and they'd both know it.  Castiel _doesn't have the juice,_ is what Crowley would say.  And even if Castiel _did_ have ‘the juice’ they also both know he wouldn't use it.  Crowley is too useful.  And far, far, too preferable over his likely successors.

“You've heard this before.  At the crossroads.  ‘ _Just a kiss.’_ It's a classic for a reason.”

Castiel's stomach churns, but he has just fallen from grace.  He can endure the rubber press of Crowley's traitor lips.  He's surprised, even, that Crowley's first request wasn't more outlandish.  Poor negotiation on his part.  So poor that it makes Castiel suspicious, in fact.  Crowley is not a poor negotiator.  Castiel's eyes narrow.

“I will kiss you.  One kiss only.  Lips to lips, only.  A duration of less than 30 seconds, only,” he tries to think of other constraints he should add to the deal.  Should he specify that it must take place on Earth?  Somewhere safe, a church, maybe, consecrated ground, where Crowley's powers will be lessened?

The careful tactician of his mind, sorting through the contingencies, is interrupted, by a chuckle.  

“Sorry love, you're a great girl with a lot going for you, but you're not my type.  Too... _good.”_

Ah.  Here it is.  “Then who do you want--”

“Dean.”  Crowley drops it there like a corpse.  

He wants to kiss Dean.  A film of black slides down over Castiel's eyes and he feels his blood heat up everywhere under his skin.  The stone smooth mask of angelic righteousness he has been wearing for this conversation starts to crack, and slip.   _Crowley wants to kiss Dean.  He wants to put his lips on Dean's lips.  He wants to find out that Dean tastes like molasses, and fire.  He wants--_

“No.” Castiel's voice shatters the lightbulb in the lamp on his nightstand.  He didn't know he could do that, anymore.  He doesn't take the time to wonder about it.  Crowley is not a poor negotiator at all.  He has asked for something so simple, so easy, uncomplicated, obtainable, but at the same time completely impossible.

“Never.”  His voice is deadly.  His facade of composure has broken.  Even though he knows that's what Crowley wants.  The facade doesn't matter.  The negotiation doesn't matter.  Not if Crowley is going to ask for… this.  “Not if he rules the Pit for a million years.”

Crowley sighs, and pretends to be disappointed.  “Pity.  I've always fancied his--”

Castiel does not let him finish, because then he will have to hunt Crowley down and kill him, mandate or no mandate, even if he is the only ally Cas has left.  Dean belongs to _Cas_ .  All of him.  Always.  Imagining Crowley's bloated, pale face on Dean's… Crowley has to have known that Castiel would never allow it.  That it would put Castiel in a rage.  That it would make a Castiel more likely to agree to anything else, anything, to rid his mind of that image.  Crowley is an _excellent_ negotiator.

Castiel grinds his teeth, and tries to find his composure again, tries to smooth the ragged surface of his mask, though Crowley has already seen what's beneath it.  Crowley is _playing him,_ and Castiel is making it _too easy._  “What do you really want, Crowley?”

“Well, I suppose if I have to settle for second best…” he pauses, pretending like he's actually thinking about it.  Castiel can _hear_ the smirk on his face.  “I want one of the halos.”

“You want… what?”

“You heard me Feathers, I want one of the halos your boyfriend snatched off your pasty family's heads.”

“A halo.”  Castiel's mind races again.  Unlinked to an angel’s grace, they're just bracelets, aren't they?  Sure, gold, but certainly not valuable enough to matter to Crowley for their material worth.  Dean wears Castiel's own, but for Castiel that is purely symbolic, a gesture with no power whatsoever.  It doesn't bind them, it doesn't give Dean any angelic powers, or any powers over Castiel.  But then, they've never really researched what it might do... He's never heard of… he doesn't know…

“You heard me, a halo.  Rarest bloody artifacts in the entire bloody firmament, and your insufferable boyfriend has them piled up on his nightstand like loose change.”

As far as Cas knows, the halos are pretty jewelry, nothing more.  And he has been an angel, and had one, for a very long time.  He wouldn't have let Dean keep them ‘piled up on his nightstand’ if they were dangerous.

Either Crowley wants one because they hold some power Castiel doesn't know about, or he really wants one for the reason he gave, that they are _rare._ That much is true, Castiel doesn't know of anyone, ever, who has had one before.  And Crowley is a collector, a dealer, maybe he wants to have one just because no one else does, so if someone calls to Hell, to make a deal for one, he will be the only one who can provide it.

If there were some truly evil or dangerous use of an angel's halo, Castiel thinks he would know about it, at least; he would have been warned, or he would have heard of his brethren being hunted for them at some time, over the millennia, wouldn't he?  

He decides.  Far better this, than Dean kept hostage from him.  Far better this, than Crowley's lips on Dean's.

“One halo.  It can be yours.”

“And what is my side of this deal?”  Crowley doesn't care; his voice is bored.  He has gotten what he wants and he will agree to overthrow Heaven, or give Castiel a half off coupon for the Sizzler, he doesn't care.

“You will transport me from my chamber to the Pit’s armory in five minutes.  You will ensure there are no demons there, or in the library, for as long as I stay there.  I will bring you one halo, in return.”

Crowley sighs.  “That's all?  We’re not raiding the bunker?  We're not making the moose blind and mute and weak as a kitten?  We're not bringing Gabriel back from the dead?”  He sounds almost disappointed.

“I don’t want to know what any of that would have cost me--”

“It's a classic for a reason--”

“Your venality astounds me, Crowley,” Castiel says, trying to be the righteous Angel again.  Crowley huffs on the other end of the line, as if he thinks it's funny that Cas thinks venality is an insult.  Cas ignores him.  “Five minutes,” he orders, and disconnects the call without waiting for a reply, throwing his phone down on the bed.

He could spend some of his five minutes putting on jeans instead of pajamas, smoothing his hair, covering his feet, so as to try to hide from Crowley how deranged he has become, but he doubts that would be successful; Crowley has read him already.  Crowley will not be fooled by the surface.

Instead he wraps one of the blankets tight around his shoulders, over his sweater, and walks to face himself against Dean's nightstand.  The pile of halos is tumbled across its surface and Castiel eyes it thoughtfully.  He picks out the smallest, palest, band from the pile:   _Ion_.  The weakest, the lowest, of the fold that stood against Dean,  He palms it and slips it into the right pocket of his pajamas.

Then he picks up a second halo.  Heavier, thicker, the gold glinting dark red.   _Raphael._ The archangel.  This one he fastens over his own left wrist.  It feels unnatural there, like his skin is a magnet and Raphael’s halo is its opposite, trying to push and slide away from him; it prickles, little sharp needles all around his wrist.  His eyebrows raise at the sensation.  Maybe there is some power in the halos, after all.  But he reassures himself; even if that is so, Crowley will not be able to accomplish anything with _Ion_ that Castiel will not be able to counter with _Raphael._

Castiel grips Raphael’s halo with his right hand, and relishes the prickles he feels in his fingers then, too.  Perhaps he has a new asset.  Perhaps the Library of Hell can tell him more about what the halo of an archangel can do.

He fixes his face in a stoic, angelic, mask, and waits for the King of Hell to summon him.

 

\---Present---

Dean is standing in the middle of a 12 foot wide devil’s trap, drawn in wavy lines of black spray paint, on concrete.  It does not hold him, but the cultists do not know that.  It will be fun to surprise them.  He grins a grin that lets sharp teeth show, and lets his eyes go black.  The cultists are huddled together, a mass of red robes, crimson, like blood, across the room (garage, it's a garage) and one of them yelps and ducks his head back down into the huddle when he sees Dean’s eyes change.

Dean’s back is straight and his arms are crossed, wings held high and motionless behind him, power charging static around him in a cloud, waiting for the cultists to try to figure out what to do with him, listening to them argue.  They are scared of him, and they should be.  He flexes a wing, and lightning cracks above him.  The cultists jump.  There are six of them.  They are all scrawny.  They are all afraid.  

He has not decided what he is going to do with them yet, and that is why he is listening.  That is why he doesn’t have one of their necks under the First Blade, already.  He’d rather not kill them, if he doesn’t have to.  They are human, and they haven’t actually done anything evil yet.  Yes, probably, trying to summon Lucifer is most often not motivated by reasons that are pure of heart, but they also haven’t actually _succeeded_ in summoning Lucifer.  They’ve only pissed Dean off, and for humans, that’s not a gankable offense.  And, Cas will be unbearable if Dean comes back with blood on his armor.  [Dean does not really believe this.   _Nothing about Cas is unbearable.  He will be so careful, when he touches me and makes my armor new again.  He will look at me with such gentle eyes.  Cas will be beautiful if I come back with blood on my armor.  Cas will take care of me.  I don’t know why, but he will._ ]

He had disagreed with Cas, before he came here, about what he might find.  Dean had thought maybe extra Goth Goth kids, stirring shit up that should not be stirred, for the sake of being that much more hardcore than the Goth kids at the next high school over.  Everything about their incantations was pure amateur hour, he could tell that from the traces that reached him, starting with the fact that they were _doing the wrong ritual._ And that was only the beginning of it, sweet Lucifer. Gold _plated_ bowl, not the real deal.   _Pig’s blood,_ not even fresh, probably from the _butcher._ And don't even get him _started_ on the Latin. The Latin--!  He hadn't ever even _taken_ Latin, not once, at any of his high schools; he'd only been scowled at by Sammy when he was doing it wrong, which was most of the time, and he could _still_ tell.  He shakes his head in disgust.

Cas had thought that all of the above might be a ruse,  that these cultists were too obviously incompetent for the summoning they were attempting; they couldn't possibly be both so eager after such a powerful evil and so naive at the same time.  Cas saw puppets, and worried about who or what might be pulling the strings.

It seems, as far as Dean can tell from where he stands and listens to them argue, that neither he nor Cas was right.  The closest Dean can compare it to, if he had to explain it to Cas, right now, is _evil Ghostfacers._ This garage is someone's mom’s garage, he’s sure of it; most of it's been cleared out to make room for the devil's trap, but there are oils stains on the floor, there's a Schwinn 10 speed hanging from a hook in the corner, and if that isn't the spare tire of a Honda Civic rolled over against the back wall then Dean never worked in a salvage yard.  There are no posters of The Crow or pewter statues of Cthulhu or black velvet curtains or waxy sandalwood candles or whatever it is Goths these days are in to, like Dean would even know, and the six cultists huddling in front of Dean are all 100% absent of eyeliner, hair dye, or face piercings.  Just regular dudes, a little on the scrawny side, in red robes belted by coarse rope.  So.  Not Goths.  Not what Dean expected

No fiery bastard raging with the black magic of the depths lept out of the shadows when Dean arrived, either, as Cas might have imagined.  The spray painted devil's trap is just a devil’s trap, and kind of a shaky one, at that.  It can't hold him, it doesn't have any surprising embellishments.  There's no Mithril cage poised above him on the ceiling, ready to drop down and contain him.  The cultists don't even seem to be communicating with some shadowy, absent figure pulling the strings, just arguing amongst themselves.  Dean considers calling Crowley, just to shoot the shit.  At least _one_ party of this summoning should be communicating with a shadowy, powerful character, and he's pretty sure he's the only one that's got the stones.  There's way too much--uggh-- _bickering_ going on outside of the devil's trap for it to be otherwise

From what Dean can tell over here on the other side of the room in his devil’s trap, these cultists were _not_ all on the same page about what they were going to do when they actually _got_ Lucifer, and now they are panicking (rightly) that he is going to kill them before they decide what they want to wish for.  That’s what it seems like they think this is:  they sell their souls, and they get a wish.  They _thought_ they were all in agreement about what they wanted, but now that they actually have Lucifer here (as they are still referring to Dean, because they don’t know any fucking better, Jesus) and it’s actually time to pony up, it turns out they are _not_ in agreement about how they want to sell their souls.  Or, more likely, Dean thinks, this argument is just a pretense and they are all chickening out, because he looks scary as fuck and maybe they are thinking they don’t want to maybe give themselves over to him for eternity.  He smiles smugly, and tries not to actually laugh, and instead look dangerous and imposing in his armor.  Actual Lucifer never looked this good, he gloats to himself.  In his hiking boots and jeans, or, even worse, his white suit.  Tom Jones looking motherfucker.  Dean kind of wishes he had worn the cape, for once.  He could raise the wind and make it flap around him.  That would be even better.  

He focuses back on the ongoing argument.  Some of the cultists, it seems, want to be able to _read_ minds.  Some of them want to be able to _control_ minds.  Some of them seem to basically want to have Bradley Cooper Limitless minds.  Lots of mind shit, of course, for nerds like this.  Dean rolls his eyes safely, knowing they won’t be able to tell because they are completely black.  

His phone buzzes in his pocket.  Long short long short.  Cas.  He ignores it, choosing to instead raise an eyebrow at the cultist that yelped, and is looking at him again.  He yelps at Dean's eyebrow.  He kind of reminds Dean of Garth, actually.  Yelpy sonofabitch.  Dean holds down a chuckle.  Garth the Lucifer cultist.  Heh.  Then he feels another buzz in his pocket.  Long short long short.  And then another one right after.  Cas texted him three times in 30 seconds.  

Keeping one long eye on the huddle of red-robed cultists, he pulls out his phone.

_Love u_

_I love you_

_Always_

He cannot _blush_ when there's a chance some yelpy cultist is going to be peeking at him, but he also, unbidden, remembers what Cas said to him before he left.    _As deep as you can as hard as you can for as long as you can_ .  His tongue feels very full in his mouth, remembering, imagining.  He texts back.   _My angel.  Always._     

He puts his phone back in his pocket and brushes his hands off against each other.  Enough huddling, and eyebrow raising, and yelping.  Time to get this show on the road.

“Humans,” he growls out, in his deepest, scariest, voice, using a twist of magic to make it echo around the room.  The cultists all jump again.  Ha.  “Who speaks for you?”  

A bearded guy half shuffles, half is pushed, forward to the front of the cultist huddle.  He has birkenstocks peeking out from underneath his robe.   _With socks._ He really looks like that head _Ghostfacers_ guy, what was his name?  Dean can’t remember.   It’s probably not him.  Doesn’t matter anyway.  “I… I… I do, Unholiness.”  Dean rolls his eyes again.

“Look, shit for brains, you sure as hell don't deserve it, but you are the luckiest motherfucker in the world.  Because I, am not Lucifer.”

“But we summoned… and you…”. Leader looks like he would be flat on his back by now, if the others weren't holding him up.  “Your _eyes,_ Prince of Lies.  Liege.  Lord.”

“Wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong.  You did not summon Lucifer.  You summoned the Master of Hell.  That's me.  And you're lucky, because I'm a real asshole but I'm not even in the same league as that shitstick.  I’m not the prince of lies.  Not the liege, not the lord, not the lightbringer, not the king either, and there's another bit of completely undeserved good luck, because there's _another_ world swallowing asshole--guess what, Hell is full of ‘em-- and if you'd summoned him you'd all probably have sold your souls for pet gerbils by now.   _Geriatric_ gerbils.”

The cultists murmur.  “Lord,” the bearded one tries again.  

“No, you’re not getting it.  I am not your Lord, and I don’t want to be.  I don’t want your souls, and if You're lucky I’m never gonna see ‘em again because that’s gonna mean you all had nice, boring, non-evil lives and went to Heaven like all the other nice boys in the neighborhood, instead of ending up on my rack.”  He rakes his black eyes over each one of their faces, slowly, individually.   “Do you want to end up on my rack?”  He brings the First Blade forth into his right hand, and he lets it make a kind of scary sound effect where it sounds like, just for a second, all the people that have ever screamed when he cut them with it are screaming into this stupid garage.

The cultists all drop their eyes and their murmuring turns to shades of, _No, No lord, No_.

Dean doesn’t let it show on his face, but he thinks this is going pretty well.  These guys are just idiots, and they just needed to be scared.  No killing necessary, and Cas isn’t even going to have to re-oil his armor.  (Cas will re-oil it anyway).

Of course, that’s when it goes to shit.  The tallest one of the cultists, a skinny, shifty, one, shoves the bearded one out front onto the ground and rushes Dean.  Dean lifts the First Blade up into guard, but this cultist, this fucking idiot, this pathetic creep, doesn’t try to attack Dean.  He doesn’t try to avoid the First Blade in his charge.  He charges right the fuck on to it, and lets it slice right through his neck.  As the blood bubbles out of his throat and his mouth, and he begins to collapse to the ground, he grabs Dean’s wrist in his death grip.  “For you,” he scratches out.  “All for you.”  

What.  The.  Fuck.

Not only is Dean not Lucifer--and he does not know how he could have possibly made that any fucking clearer-- meaning that he does not want this idiot’s soul, and not only did this jerkwad not even make his wish, but even in the position in Hell that Dean _does_ have, he’s still not going to get this soul even with this motherfucker dead, because Dean doesn’t take suicides.  Those suffered enough in life, to his mind, those don’t need the rack.  Those go to Crowley.  And there is little, maybe nothing, in this existence that Crowley is less interested in than the souls of suburban boys who end up in Hell because they suicided.

Dean throws the dying body of this cultist away from him and onto the floor, and backs away from the rest of them, eyes flashing.  Now he is scared.  Scared of them.  Scared because he doesn’t know what is going to happen and he doesn’t know what the _fuck_ just happened a moment ago.  Scared that some more of them might get the same idea.  He flicks his wrist and twists the First Blade down, so that the sharp edge of it is not accessible by charging morons any more.  But he doesn’t send it away, because he is afraid of what is happening here, because he doesn’t understand.  

The yelpy one charges him next.  The one that reminded Dean of Garth.  This time he holds out his empty left hand, just to keep him away.  Cultist-Garth reaches for the First Blade and Dean grunts as he pulls it back and away, grappling with Cultist-Garth’s long, clowny fingers and keeping them off the First Blade.  Cultist-Garth shrugs when he realizes he cannot reach the First blade.  He shrugs, and he steps back a step, and just when Dean thinks _Great, he's only 98% crazy,_ he pulls a long, thin, knife from the pocket of his red robe.  Dean moves into a guard stance again, but the attack never comes.  Cultist-Garth did not pull that knife to attack Dean with it.  No, that wouldn't be fucked up enough.  Instead, slits his own gangly, pale, throat.  As he collapses down on top of the first cultist who charged, he looks up at Dean with his dewy Garth eyes and says, “For you.   All for you.”  Then the spark goes out of those eyes forever.  The blood spilling from his neck adds to that from the first cultist in a pool at Dean's feet, but it's not even visible against the crimson cult robes.   _Blood red,_ Dean thinks.

Dean feels a shudder trying to rise from the base of his spine, but he ignores it, saving it for later when it is safe, when he is wrapped in Castiel's arms.  He stays in guard, blood starting to pump into his muscles, and he turns left and right in sweeping motions, tracking the four remaining cultists, who are starting to close in on him, shuffling inwards over the edge of the devil's trap.  “You guys, what are you--” Dean starts to stammer, still thinking maybehe can explain, that logic has any power in this nightmare.  “You don’t _get it._ I don’t want your souls.  Don’t want ‘em.  Do.  Not.  Want.  And if you go out this way I’m not even gonna get ‘em.  If you go out this way, you’re just going to end up waiting in line for etern-” Another cultist charges him.  Dean catches him, and now that he knows what’s coming, he tries to knock the long, thin knife out of this cultist’s hands when he draws it.  He succeeds, but while he’s wrestling with this third cultist, a fourth one drops to his knees at Dean’s feet, takes hold of his ankles, and, looking up at him, slits his own throat.  “For you.  All for you,” he gurgles through his blood, as he collapses.  Same words.  Dean gulps.  What the fuck is going on here?

He gives up wrestling with the third cultist, and hits him hard enough with the hilt of the First Blade to make him pass out.  That’s his new plan.  Knock these fuckers out and run.  He doesn’t feel smug any more.  He doesn’t feel bemused or bored, he doesn’t feel hot for Cas.  He feels scared as shit, because he doesn’t know what is going on, but it is crystal fucking clear that whatever it is is _not good_.

In addition to the cultist he has just knocked out, there are two more left (six minus one knocked out and three dead, there are three dead, and why?); the bearded leader and another one, with downy, duckling hair, shorn almost down to his scalp.  He looks young.  

These circle him, knives drawn.  They hold them awkwardly out in front of them, like spoons, or sticks.  It’s clear that they are not fighters.  They don’t think they can hurt Dean, and that’s not their plan.  They only have those knives for one reason.  To slit their own throats.   _Why?_ Dean thinks.   _Why?_  A dozen rituals, a dozen spells, come unbidden, lining up in his head to answer, magic that needs a blood sacrifice, and he sorts them automatically, trying to understand what is going on, but none of them fit.  Wrong number of people. Wrong shaped knives.  Wrong robes; Latin, not Sumerian.  None of the rituals he calls to mind need Lucifer.  None need him, Dean or Righteous Man or Master, for that matter, and that seems to be important since all these suicidal fucks keep saying “For you” as their last fucking words.  

While he is trying to work it out, the two remaining cultists look at each other, and nod.  The bearded leader darts towards Dean, his long, sharp knife pointed at Dean’s chest, and it’s not a credible threat, the leader’s arm shakes as he stabs and the knife is too thin to pierce Dean’s armor, even if it weren’t magic.  So Dean ignores him, and turns, because he knows that what he’s going to see behind him is the downy haired cultist trying to slit his own throat.  He feels a sharp burn on his forearm, where the leader’s knife, aimed at his chest, slices between his coat and his gauntlet and cuts him as he turns.  He ignores it, and catches the downy haired cultist’s wrist just as he manages to raise his knife to his own throat and touch.  A dot of blood weeps out and Dean stares at it.   “What are you doing,” he whispers hoarsely.  “Why?”  He looks the final cultist in the eye.  His eyes are blue.  So blue.  So open, to him.  He only sees fear, there.  Just for one second, before he whispers “Why?” again, and knocks him out.  Blue eyes close.  

Dean’s eyes close too, and he exhales tiredly before turning back around to face the leader, who is looking at his own knife in a kind of dull surprise, like he cannot believe he managed to cut Dean with it.  He is going to regret that, Dean knows.  He is going to regret it more than he has ever regretted anything he has ever done in his life.  More than he would have regretted anything he had done in his life if he had lived another hundred years as a Satan worshipper.  Because Castiel is going to have to Teach him, now.  The cut on Dean’s arm is already healed, but it doesn’t matter.  It won’t matter, to Castiel.  Castiel will have felt it, through the bond, a sharp, shallow, cut, as if he had been cut himself.  He is going to be in a rage.  A cold, quiet, rage. His blue eyes hard as glaciers.

Dean remembers Castiel urging him to kill any of the cultists that were a threat to him, before he left, when they were pressed tight together, when this job seemed like it was just going to be a scare ‘em straight, not a fucking nightmare.  Castiel wanted Dean to remember that it would be a mercy for Dean to kill any of the cultists that threatened him.  Rather than leave them to Castiel.  He closes his eyes again, this time in sorrow.  Because he cannot kill this man.  He is the leader of the cult, and something is wrong here.  Something is very wrong, something so wrong Dean doesn’t understand it, or recognize it, and he can’t kill this man until he knows what it is.  

“For you, Lord.  All for you,” the leader says defiantly, raising his knife in front of him again, and looking Dean in the eye.

Dean’s eyes flick back to green.  “You idiot.  You poor, poor idiot,” he says, as he approaches the leader, and knocks away his blade easily, and grips his shoulder with a gauntleted hand.

“What… What are you,”  

“I’m sorry, “ Dean says, and he really is.

“What do you, what’s,” the leader says, but Dean squeezes his neck and twists at it with his power until he passes out.  

He looks around the garage, checking again for similar that he missed, clues to what is going on here.  But the walls are white and bare, and the concrete floor is marked only with oil stains, and the wobbly devil's trap.  All of the cultists are now either passed out or dead.  The dead are crumpled on top of each other, the pool of blood spreading and blackening beneath them. _For you,_ Dean hears, three whispers overlapping in his head.   _All for you._ The passed out are breathing softly, some starting to stir, to moan at their headaches.  Dean does not want to be here in this garage, when they wake.

He looks down at the leader where he is crumpled on the ground, pitying him.  He looks so small there, so pathetic, and soon he will be in so much pain.  Dean sighs, resignedly, and hefts the dead weight of the cult leader up over his shoulder.  He spreads his wings.  He feels exhausted, almost too heavy to fly with the cult leader draped like a corpse over his shoulders, even though the fight was barely even a real fight and it only lasted a few minutes.  He doesn’t understand what has happened here.  He feels covered in the blood of the dead cultists, even though almost none of it got on him.  Only the thin line of red where the leader cut him, and he bled, before he healed.

He sighs again, and dives into the black between Earth and Hell.  He feels a deep unease take root in his chest, as he travels.  Something is _wrong._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blood and violence in this chapter. And way too much plot, gross. 
> 
> You can follow me on tumblr @ brainheartpizza (https://www.tumblr.com/blog/brainheartpizza). I post (basically unedited) excerpts in between AO3 updates.


	8. Interlocutor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He wants to be with Dean forever. He wants Dean wrapped around him, inside his body, mouth always close enough that he can feel Dean’s warm breath on his skin. He wants to feel everything Dean feels, through their bond. He wants Dean to have the same, to be able to feel the extent of Castiel’s love; how it is unwavering and eternal, how it is blinding and deep as the ocean, how it is in every cell of his heart. He wants to hold Dean as close to him as he can, and whisper in his ear that he is beautiful, that he is good, that he is safe, that Castiel loves him. He doesn’t want there to ever be anything between them; secrets or clothes or air or space or time or lies. He wants to only ever inhabit that universe where he is wrapped in Dean’s wings, and Dean is golden above him, eyes shining, strong inside him, and it is only them, Dean and Castiel, and there is nothing else. He wants to inhabit that universe until the end of time. After everything else is gone, Earth and Heaven and the angels and the stars and the Pit of Hell. And he knows that he can, that he will. That is what the promise means. That is what they have promised each other.

_ I will treat you well _  
_ My sweet angel _  
_ So help me Jesus _  
_ \--Toadies, Possum Kingdom _

 

\---Present---

Sam and Castiel have gotten rid of corpses together before.  They don't have to talk about it.  Sam kicks and bends the limbs of the dead demon until it is in a roughly cylindrical shape, its legs laying straight and closed together, its arms crossed over its chest.  Castiel then wraps it in a rug he found behind the library’s circulation desk, a rug of mauve carpet made out of the exact same material as the carpet that is actually covering the floor.  Sam hoists the carpet-wrapped corpse over his shoulder, and Castiel touches his forehead, to transport them to a furnace.  

There are a lot of furnaces in Hell.  

Many of them have worse things cooking in them than demon corpses.

Wordlessly, Castiel opens the iron grate over the fire they have arrived at, and Sam tips the corpse in, head first.  Castiel clangs the grate shut, puts his fingers back on Sam’s head, and transports them back to the library.  At no point during any of this do either of them say a word.  It's neither work nor an environment that lends itself well to conversation.

In the library, there is still a stain of black demon blood on the carpet where Oraxes fell.  Sam looks at it, and then back up at Castiel.  Demon blood is hard to banish by magic, especially in Hell, Castiel knows this well.  But Sam looks at the stain again, and back up at Castiel again, with big eyes, so Castiel sets his jaw and gets down on his knees.  Using his gold blade, he slices out a square of carpet around the stain, revealing concrete underneath.  He pulls out the stained square, and sets it aside, to burn later in the same furnace as Oraxes.  Over the pitted concrete, he manifests a new patch of mauve carpet to fill the empty square.  The pattern and edges of the new square don’t quite meet up with the existing carpet.  

He doesn’t replace the rug.  No one stands at the circulation desk anyway, in this version of the library.

When he stands from his crouch, he rubs his thumb along the edge of his golden blade.  It has dulled a bit, from demon necks and sawing at carpet.  He will need to sharpen it, or choose another to carry with him.  He thinks he will choose another of the ones that Dean has brought to him, to carry.  He likes to use them all.

He imagines them, his collection, each one unique, and precious.  Perhaps now he will carry the one made of  white ceramic, sharp as a molecule, gleaming and fierce and beautiful,  _ just like you, Cas _ , Dean had said, when he handed it down to Cas from his throne.  Or maybe the one made of Damascus steel, shining and shimmering and blue and complex, _ like your eyes, Cas _ .  Or the meteorite, ancient and priceless,  _ like you, angel. _

He does not consider his angel blade.  He does not carry that, any more, not ever.  When the last of his grace burned away under Dean’s hands, his angel blade had succumbed to its great age without grace to sustain it.  It had turned dull and rusted, brittle and pitted through in places.   It's not even on the wall with his other knives.  It’s in a cardboard box underneath Castiel and Dean’s bed, with a half empty pack of cigarettes and a newspaper clipping warning the public about Dean Winchester, who the Sparks, Nevada, police are seeking for questioning in relation to a series of grisly murders in the desert. It’s useless, won’t hold an edge, and Castiel wouldn’t choose to use it over the knives that Dean has brought him, anyway, even if still gleamed with all the glory of Heaven.

“You’re creeping me out, Cas,” Sam says, interrupting his thoughts.  Castiel realizes he is caressing the edge of his gold knife with his thumb, with a faraway look in his eyes.  

“Sorry, I was…”  _ thinking about knives _ doesn’t seem like it will reduce the extent to which Sam is ‘creeped out,’ Castiel guesses, though he can't always tell.  “I was thinking.”  

“I can see that.  About…?”

Castiel doesn’t lie.  He’s trying not to do that, with Sam, or Dean, anymore.  Instead, he changes the subject.  “I have several hypotheses about why your Name was ineffective on me.  Some more plausible than others.”  

Sam accepts the segue and sits down in front of the library database computer.  He seems almost eager; this is what he said he wanted to study first in the library, after all; Castiel had only looked up the Mark as part of his ruse to entrap Oraxes.  “Ok,” Sam says, and picks up a pencil, and another piece of scrap paper, holding them ready and looking up at Castiel like he is going to make a list.  

“Most likely, I think, is that between Dean’s Name on me and the promise, I’m too… there’s no… no one else has any claim on me, or can make any claim.”  He is careful not to make it sound like  _ Dean owns me _ or  _ I belong to Dean _ , because he doesn’t think Sam will like that, and he doesn’t want to argue.  Though Dean does own him.  And he does belong to Dean.  All of him.  Always.  He remembers Dean holding him down by his neck, fucking him into his throne and his blood rushes.  He taps down the flicker of desire.  

If Sam notices the blush that flowers in Castiel’s cheeks, he ignores it.  “Ok, we’ll come back to that.  What are the other possibilities?”  

Cas starts to list them, extending a finger for each.  “Dean wrote his name on me with our blood, and the First Blade.  You wrote yours with a Sharpie.  It could be that the medium matters.”  Sam looks just a little pale at this revelation for a second, and he opens his mouth like he wants to ask a question, but he shakes his head a little, to himself, and just takes a notation.  “I asked Dean to write his name on me, where  _ you _ asked  _ me _ if you could write yours.  Maybe my intent matters.”  Sam nods and makes another note.  “Dean is the Master of the Pit, a Knight of Hell, one of the Chosen, and you are only a human.  Maybe the author matters.” Sam hums, and writes that down too.  He looks up when he finishes writing, waiting for Castiel to continue, but Cas only shrugs.  “It could be all of those, or none of them.”

Sam nods.  He leans back in his chair, and presses his pencil to his lips.  He reads over the list again, making small annotations here and there.  “Cas,” Castiel looks at him.  “Tell me about the promise.”  

Cas’ brow furrows.  Surely Sam knows… Surely Dean told him when Sam imprisoned him in the bunker.  Dean would have had to; how else could he have explained the terrible condition he was in, just from being in a cell, away from Castiel.  Sam couldn’t have ignored Dean's pain, wouldn’t have.  “Didn’t… didn’t Dean tell you, when you…” he swallows, and tries to let his rage at the Sam of the past be in the past.  “When you had him?”  

Sam looks down, away from Castiel’s eyes, and pushes his hair back behind his ears where it has fallen forward into his face.  “He was… in pretty bad shape, when he talked about it.”  

Castiel pushes down his rage again.  He waits with a still face.  He hopes it is neutral.  It is actually grim.  

Sam doesn't look up to meet his eyes.  “He just said that he had to get back to you, that he promised you with his blood.  But he was crazy, he was trying to dig a hole in the floor with his fingernails, he was crying, I had no idea what he was talking about and it was like he couldn’t hear me when I tried to talk to him half the time.”  

_ Dean.  I should have come for you sooner.   _ Cas thinks.   _  I shouldn't have been afraid.   _ And he whispers, as much to himself as to Sam: “He did promise me.  With his blood.”  Let Sam hear it.  Let him hear it all, and know what he did when he summoned Dean away, how it hurt.  Let him know what suffering he caused, and why.  Let him know what Dean and Castiel are to each other now.  Maybe it will help him to understand.  Maybe it will help him to recognize the  _ futility  _ of his meddling, how  _ unwelcome  _ and  _ unnecessary  _ it is.  “Dean opened his palm with the First Blade, and he promised me that he would be with me Always, and he let his blood drip into the fire.”  

Sam’s mouth drops open wide, wide as his eyes.  “Blood magic!  Cas--”

Yes, that was Castiel’s reaction too.  But that’s only half of it.   _ Half  _ of what Sam flaunted when he summoned Dean away.  “And I told him that wasn’t enough.  Do you hear me Sam, do you understand?  That promise refolded the shape of the firmament, it bound him to me  _ forever,  _ his  _ soul,  _ his  _ blood, everything,  _ and I told him it  _ wasn't enough.” _

Sam shakes his head just another tiny shake, this time as if in negation, and looks horrified.   _ He is not one to judge,  _ thinks Castiel.   _ To judge the blood oaths of others.  To judge what someone might suffer, or give up, for love of another.  For Dean.  _ Castiel decides to press his finger into the wound.  

“I told him I needed him closer, I told him I needed more of him.  I begged him to come closer, closer, to cover me with his body, to kiss me, to bite me, harder, and harder, until he broke my skin and I bled, and then I promised him Always, too.”  

Sam is more silent than the corpse of Oraxes, and more still.  

Again, Castiel waits.  

“You…. He…” Sam sounds like he is choking on it.  “ _ Blood magic _ , Cas.  Do you know what that--”

Castiel looks at him with ancient eyes, and Sam looks away again.  Of course Castiel knows.  “I tried to tell him, Sam.  I didn’t think he understood what it meant.  I didn't think he understood, or even  _ could _ understand, what  _ forever,  _ meant, or that it would be his own blood that would bring him back to me if he ever... “ he still can’t say  _ decided he didn’t want me  _ “left me.  I thought he didn't understand what that meant, what it would be like.”   _ What he would suffer, if someone took him from me.  “ _ But he understands.  He may not know how to experience forever, he may not even be able to imagine it, but he wants it.  He wants, with all his heart, to never have to leave me again.  _ Never.   _ And I have sworn, I have  _ sworn,  _ that he will have me.   _ All of me.  Forever.   _ Listen to me Sam.  Hear me.  Hear this, if you hear nothing else.  I will give him forever.  If it means the earth ends in fire, and the angels are destroyed and the entire universe becomes Purgatory, grim and dark and monstrous,  _ I will give him forever. _ ”  

Sam looks like he is about to cry.  “Cas, God, Cas...you… he...So when I had him in the bunker, and he was… God, I thought he was faking it, to try to get me to feel sorry for him, to let him loose, to send him back.  God, Cas, his blood, his  _ fingernails,”  _ Sam looks nauseous for a second, his face pale, remembering.  “… I was  _ torturing  _ him.”  

Cas has imagined having this conversation with Sam many times since he raided the bunker, and he has imagined many ways he could respond to this realization on Sam’s part.   _ Yes, you were.  You fool. You should have  _ **_asked_ ** _.  You should have  _ **_listened._ ** _ You should have  _ **_heard me,_ ** _ crying on the phone.  You should have  _ **_seen_ ** _ your brother, and how much you were hurting him.  But you only saw the demon.  You.  Of all people.  You saw the demon, instead of your brother. _

But now that it's really happening, now that he's looking into Sam’s teary eyes after just disposing of a corpse with him, all the rage he’s pent up from the moment Dean disappeared from under his fingers until now feels like it has been turned down to simmer.  So he just says:  “Yes.  That is why I had to come for him”  And he puts his hand on Sam’s shoulder when Sam’s face falls and he hangs his head and sniffs out guilty tears.  “I will always come for him,” he says resolutely, stroking his thumb against Sam’s shoulder, trying to comfort him.  “Anywhere. No matter what it costs.”  

“I’m sorry, Cas.  I didn’t know.  You’ve got to believe me, I wouldn’t have… I wouldn’t have done that, to him, or to you, if I had known.”  

“I believe you Sam.  I have never believed you wish your brother harm.  Only that, since he took the Mark, you haven’t always known what harms him and what does not.”  _ Or been willing to listen. _

Sam nods shakily, still hanging his head.  “‘Sorry, Cas.  I'm still trying to figure all this out.  I am trying, I really am but it's so… The Pit and the Mark and your Fall and now blood magic… it's hard.”  

“I know Sam.  I know.  I will help you, if you'll let me.  That is what Dean wants.”

“And you just do what Dean wants, now?”

“When it is not incredibly foolish, yes.”

Castiel says this deadpan, but Sam huffs a laugh, and wipes his eyes, and sits straighter.  “So,” he says, trying to cover up this emotional moment, escape it without acknowledging it as quickly as possible.  So like his brother.  “You’re thinking there's a good chance that this promise, plus Dean's Name on your neck, made you immune to another Name being placed on you.”  

Castiel lets the moment pass.  Though he does not feel the same shame for showing his emotions that Sam and Dean feel, he also doesn’t need Sam to grovel in front of him.  He doesn’t need to talk about this forever.  Sam is sorry, he is genuinely sorry, he has said so, and Cas believes him, and that is enough.  “Yes.  That is what I believe is most likely.”  

“Ok, so let’s see if that’s ever happened before, or been tested before. It's not too crazy of a combination; naming magic, at least, is common enough.”  Cas nods in assent. Blood magic is… less common.  Sam picks his pencil back up and taps it against his lips, thoughtful.  Then he types into the library database software “magic:naming & magic:blood.”  The hard drive grinds against itself, like it is tired, and 3 references meeting this combination of terms appear one by one as Sam continues to tap his pencil against his lips.  Castiel’s eyes flick over the results.  

“I know where they are.  You can keep searching.”  Exactly the same words he said when he left Sam as bait for Oraxes, not an hour ago.  

Sam looks up, mocking fearfully:  “Is there another demon coming, to try to swear mortal revenge on me while you’re in the stacks?”  

“Not that I know of,” Castiel says, again completely deadpan, and turns away to fetch the books.

Sam smiles to himself.  Castiel was the funniest angel in his garrison.  Ask anybody.

*****

No more demons come to attack Sam while Castiel fetches the three books that the computer system says mention both blood magic and naming magic.  One of these is in Sumerian, one in Attic Greek, and one in English, apparently stolen from the Men of Letters bunker by Abbadon.  Sam can read Greek and has been living in the Men of Letters treehouse, so he takes those, but he can't read Sumerian and Castiel can, so Cas takes that one.  

It’s an easy division of labor, and that's how Sam remembers it being with Cas.  Unlike Dean, slippery as an eel when it was research time.  Dean would make excuses:   _ Gotta make salt rounds, Sammy _ , or  _ We’re outta spray paint, Sammy,  _ or,  _ Wards need checking, Sammy.   _ Sometimes he wouldn’t even make an excuse, he might just disappear-- to the kitchen, to the shooting range, to the garage-- as if he believed there was no need to make an excuse because research was not something expected of him, any more than Sam would need to make an excuse if Dean decided to overhaul Baby’s transmission.  Worst of all, in Sam’s opinion, Dean might say something like  _ You’re the brains of this operation, Sammy.  Call me when there’s something to punch; my ‘help’ in the library is only going to slow you down. _  Which was not true, of course, not even close; that’s why Sam hated it.  Dean's Latin was better than Sam's had ever been, and Sam had taken 4 years of it in 9 high schools while Dean was smoking Marlboro Reds behind dumpsters.  Dean was fucking  _ fussy  _ about Latin, same way he was about germs.  It was  _ almost, almost _ the end of his Indiana Jones crush when Indy forgot that Iehovah starts with an ‘I’ in the Latin orthography in  _ Last Crusade.  “ _ There is no archeology professor, anywhere, that forgets  _ basic facts _ about the Latin alphabet that even a  _ high school drop out  _ knows,” Dean has explained to Sam on numerous occasions, seemingly finding this lapse even less probable and more upsetting than the nonsense with the Ark of the Covenant, which Dean has opened, personally (and, needless to say, survived.)

Sam and Castiel read for a while.  It's peaceful.  It's like it used to be.  Like it hasn't been for so long, for Sam, alone in the bunker losing his mind trying to figure out how to save his brother and his best friend from a Hell he can imagine, remember, and having to do it alone.  He warns himself, in the quiet, in the comfort, not to let this seem too normal, not to let nostalgia make him  _ too _ comfortable. It might look like the Kansas City Public Library, but it's still the Pit of Hell.  Cas might look small and bookish, hunched over a giant Sumerian tome and occasionally furrowing his brow and moving his lips while he reads, but he's still a Fallen angel, same as Lucifer.  He still has a blood oath carved into his neck that binds him forever to the Master of the Pit, and the fact that that's Sam's brother doesn't make it any less fucked up (in fact, it might make it more so.  Sam isn't even sure about that, there are so many layers of fucked up going on here, layers upon layers of fucked up all eating their own tails.)

Sam sighs and leans back from what he's reading.  The Men of Letters are so fucking smug and pedantic.  They write like every fucking sentence is the conclusion of  _ Origin of the Species,  _ even when it's about trivial, disgusting bullshit like how much blood a demon can lose before it dies. “ _ When we set out upon this exploration it was our supposition that the venomous ichor of the Damned creatures would be exhausted at no more than five litres; that is, the selfsame volume as is typical in Man…”.   _ Sexist, too:  not a big surprise.  Women have blood too, assholes.

Regardless of their numerous stylistic faults, it does seem that the Men of Letters did conduct a handful of experiments relevant to Castiel's binding to Dean and lack thereof to Sam.  A member named Eustace Herrington bound several demons by branding his true Name into the skin of their vessels.  He then used the power his Name gave him over the demons to force them to make blood oaths of varying severity, ranging, for example, from swearing to check the bunker mail every day at exactly sunrise, to swearing to find Lucifer in his Cage and kill him  (Eustace’s true Name is not provided in the record of the experiment, and Sam idly imagines various unkind possibilities:   _ Creepy Motherfucker _ and  _ Who Wears Too Much Tweed,  _ and  _ Who Should Not Be Left Alone With a Corpse, _ and  _ Who Overcompensates _ ).  The goal of these experiments, it seems, in addition to just being the kind of ghoulish pseudoscientific bullshit that the Men of Letters loved to get up to, was to find out if a blood oath made under compulsion was still binding.  

The results of Eustace’s tests are are murky, because his experimental design was poor.  He tested demons in vessels and the blood of the vessel belongs to the vessel, not the demon, so it's inconclusive whether the  _ demons _ ever made any blood oaths at all, even if the vessels bled and spoke the words.  The mail demon sure as hell never checked the fucking mail, but it could be either because it's not possible to compel someone to make a blood oath  _ or  _ because the demon never actually bled its own blood, and therefore never  _ made _ a blood oath.  A better design would have been to summon the demons in their true forms, but that is not what was done (because Eustace was a creepy power tripper, and probably a chicken, but not a good scientist, Sam concludes.)

Disregarding the lack of scientific rigor in Eustace’s experiments, this book  _ does _ have information on the combination of blood magic and naming magic, the computer was right, but his experiments did  _ not _ involve branding multiple Names on any of the demons, nor did they involve demons making the blood oath first, before the Name was applied, as happened in Cas and Dean's case.  Therefore, this resource neither confirms nor disproves any of Castiel’s hypotheses.

Sam opens his mouth to summarize this to Cas, but he has this image in his mind of some random demon’s vessel, maybe one that looks a bit like Ruby, steaming burned flesh and screaming while some smug, detached Men of Letters functionary named  fucking Eustace, wearing a vest and a tie and glasses, brands his Name into its skin and dictates the whole affair into a tape recorder.  It would have hurt, being branded like that, and the demons wouldn't have wanted it, and the vessels would have wanted it even less-- it was the  _ vessels’  _ skin that would have been singed off.  No better for the Men of Letters to hurt someone like that than for a creature to do it--maybe even worse, since the Men of Letters had souls.  

So instead of summarizing his book, he asks Castiel, “Did you really want it?”  His mouth closes sharply, taken aback by what has come out of it.

Cas looks up at him over the huge book he is reading, confused.  Sam could be referring to so many ‘it’s:  his Fall, the promise, his tattoo.  Sam clarifies.  “Dean's Name.  Your tattoo.  Did you really ask him for it?  You said you did, before.  But did you really want it?”

Cas eyes Sam carefully, like he's not sure how truthful he should be.  Partly because he begged for the tattoo during and for sex, but also partly because he's not sure whether Sam will believe him no matter what he says.  He decides to start with a sanitized version that is  _ true,  _ but not, perhaps,  _ all  _ of the truth.  He is almost certain that Dean would advise him that Sam should not be told how hard Castiel gets when he remembers he is a slave to Dean's cock.

“I like it when people look at me and know I am with Dean,” he starts.  “I have always liked that.  I liked it when he put his hand on my back, walking into a diner, when I was an angel,”  Sam nods, remembering this.  He remembers at first wondering why Dean did it so much, before he--realized-- about Dean and Cas, and then, after,  hiding smiles when he saw it, thinking it was so sweet.  

“I like it when he kisses”- _ fucks-” _ me in front of the demons.  He is so beautiful, so bright, so strong, so brave.  He is everything.  I want  _ everyone,  _ to  _ always  _ know, that I am his.”  He says this dreamily, staring off into the long distance.

Sam looks like he is trying to actually believe this, mentally rotating it this way and that to see if it seems sound, to see if there is an angle he can cope with.

“But you could have gotten, I dunno, ‘Dean’ with a heart around it, or a green eye, or a copy of the Mark, or, even, like, ‘Castiel Winchester,’-- it didn't have to be his true Name.”

“I--”. Castiel's starts, but Sam has more to say, the tide of words he held in before with little nods to himself all rushing out, now.

“And you could have done it, you know, with  _ ink,  _ and a  _ needle,  _ instead of your co-mingled blood and the cursed weapon that committed the first human murder.”

Now it is Castiel's turn to narrow his eyes and think.  When Sam puts it that way, it does sound a bit… extreme.  Why  _ didn’t _ he get an ink tattoo?  Why  _ didn’t _ he start with just “Dean”?  More people would recognize that than Dean’s true name, anyway.  It didn’t even have to be a tattoo:  Dean has his halo, Castiel could have gotten a ring.  He could have worn one of Dean’s feathers around his neck.  He takes Sam’s question seriously:  Why  _ did  _ they skip all the way to a tattoo drawn in their own blood that would bind them for eternity?

He doesn’t have to think about it for very long.     

“None of that would have been enough,” Cas says quietly.  “Ink wouldn't have been enough,  it's _never_ enough _,_ we can never get close enough, bound tightly enough, it's never _enough.”_ Frustration creeps into his voice by the end of this, and his hands fist on the library table.

Sam only sighs, as if he was hoping this was not the answer he was going to get but is not surprised, in the end, to have gotten it.  “Yeah Cas.  I know.  I know.  You two…”. He shakes his head.  “I worry.  I worry that ‘enough’ might be ‘too much,’ if you ever find it.  That maybe it already is.  Can you understand that?”  

Castiel tries to consider it, as Sam has asked.  He doesn't think that it is possible for him to ever have ‘too much’ of Dean, but he tries to think about what that might mean, why Sam might be concerned about it, because Sam has been trying to listen to him during this conversation, to hear him, and he wants to do the same.

He wants to be with Dean forever.  He wants Dean wrapped around him, inside his body, mouth always close enough that he can feel Dean’s warm breath on his skin.  He wants to feel everything Dean feels, through their bond.  He wants Dean to have the same, to be able to feel the extent of Castiel’s love; how it is unwavering and eternal, how it is blinding and deep as the ocean, how it is in every cell of his heart.  He wants to hold Dean as close to him as he can, and whisper in his ear that he is beautiful, that he is good, that he is safe, that Castiel loves him.  He doesn’t want there to ever be anything between them; secrets or clothes or air or space or time or lies.  He wants to only ever inhabit that universe where he is wrapped in Dean’s wings, and Dean is golden above him, eyes shining, strong inside him, and it is only them, Dean and Castiel, and there is nothing else.  He wants to inhabit that universe until the end of time.  After everything else is gone, Earth and Heaven and the angels and the stars and the Pit of Hell.  And he knows that he can, that he will.  That is what the promise means.  That is what they have promised each other.  

Why does this worry Sam?  This future, it is so beautiful, it glows so bright and golden in Castiel’s heart, he doesn't understand why Sam would be worried.  Is it like the tattoo?  Is it ‘too much,’ too fast?  Should he and Dean have started by living together in apartment, should they have had a wedding?  Should they have lived out Dean’s lifespan together, should Cas have stayed an angel and made him pies and brought him beers and taken him on vacations to sunny places with his angel wings?  Should they have done that, before swearing with their immortal blood to be everything to each other, forever?  Castiel thinks he would have liked that.  It would have been nice, to sit on a front porch of a house Dean built himself and bring Dean coffee in the morning.  Maybe they could have had a view of the mountains.

It would have been nice.  But it wouldn’t have been  _ enough _ .  It would have come to this eventually, inevitably, like an inhale after an exhale.  It would have.  Castiel would have wanted more.  Dean would have wanted more.  Castiel an angel and Dean a human, Castiel would have fucked Dean until he fell apart.  He would have made him cry, and scream, and beg.  He would have been so strong, his whispers and his gaze and his adoration so overwhelming. He would have fucked Dean's soul, he would have fucked him with his love, with his grace, and with these he would have fucked Dean so hard, so deep, so long, that Dean would have never been the same. Dean would have clung to him after, terrified that Castiel would fly way, and would have asked Castiel to stay with him, to  _ promise _ to stay with him while he slept.  

Castiel would have promised.  He would have promised Dean anything.  Dean would have drifted off to sleep, and maybe he would have been half asleep already when he would have asked Castiel to promise to stay with him forever.  And Castiel would have promised, again.  “Yes, Dean.  My love.  Always.  Forever,” he would have whispered into Dean's ear as he fell asleep, combing his fingers through Dean's hair.  And there would have come a time, it would only have taken one time, when his heart would have been sick from Dean always being afraid Castiel would leave him, when he would have let a little of his grace flow into Dean, where it always has wanted to go since the moment he set eyes on Dean in Hell, and he would have let his promise be carried on that grace, and it  _ would _ have bound Castiel to Dean forever.  And when Dean woke he would have been able to feel it, Castiel’s grace inside him, and he would have been grouchy that Castiel ‘wasted’ it on him but he would have wanted to swear too.  He would have cut his palm.  He would have lit a fire.  He would have taken Castiel’s wedding ring off of Castiel’s finger and gone out to his shop and engraved his true name in it and cut his thumb and bled on it and sworn  _ Always _ before he gave it back.

That's what would have happened.  That's how it would have gone, like that, or close enough to it, in any lifetime where Dean and a Castiel live and are together.  It's never  _ enough. _

Castiel doesn’t know how to explain this to Sam.  He thinks Sam might already know, and that might be exactly why he worries.  As Castiel and Dean grow more powerful, so, too, do the promises they make each other.  Sam knows this.  Maybe what Sam fears is a world that has become only the wreckage of Dean and Castiel's love.  Destroyed so that it cannot keep them apart.

“Sam--”  He starts, feeling like he owes Sam some kind of response, but not sure what he is going to say.  

He never finishes his sentence.  He blinks and draws back, slams his book closed, stands, knocking over his chair, draws his knife, sheaths it, draws it again, and starts to run towards the armory.  

“Cas!”  Sam shouts, standing, striding to follow.  “What-- What are you doing?  What’s wrong?  What’s going on?”  A demon was in here, trying to kill Sam, 3 hours ago, and Castiel had acted like it was a speck of lint that needed to be flicked off his shoulder.  What could be happening now, that could make him act like this?

Cas ignores him.  He presses his hand to a gold plate on the door to the armory and it glows and opens.  Sam ducks in behind him, before it swings closed.  “Cas,” he pants.  “Cas, what are you doing?  What’s happening?”

Castiel is walking, though briskly, through the armory.  Sam has never been in here before, and it is hard for him to focus on following Cas when he wants to just… gawk.  The armory is huge, the size of a football field, and everything in it looks like it is priceless, powerful, ancient.  Weapons sharp and strange, armor for bodies that couldn't have been human, artifacts that glimmer and glow and hum with power.  Castiel ignores it all.  He is bee-lining for a door in the back.  Though Sam rubbernecks at almost every object he sees, his strides are longer than Castiel’s and he keeps pace with him until he stops at the back door.  This one has Castiel’s name, the backwards looking 13, and Dean’s, the Enochian,  _ Who the Darkness Fears _ , intertwined, inlaid on it two feet high in gold.  It has another plate by its side, same as the one that Castiel had to touch to get into the armory, but this one has a kind of angry black static surrounding it.  It also looks newer than the one for the armory, like it has not been touched very much, unlike the first one, which looked ancient, well smoothed by palms over centuries.  “Cas what’s-”  Castiel reaches out to touch it.  “Cas are you sure you should--”

Castiel keeps ignoring him.  He puts his hand on the sparking plate.  All the blood vessels in his arm turn black, starting at his fingers where they touch the plate and racing up to his shoulder.  A shadow of a heavy, black, wing appears over the same shoulder and then disappears as the door opens.  

Sam does not know what the fuck is going on.  Neither what is making Castiel act this way nor what exactly it is that Castiel is doing, or trying to do.  He reaches out to grab Castiel’s shoulder, but when he touches Castiel’s black-veined skin a shock burns through his arm, heavy and sharp and reaching all the way to his heart, making it skip.  He lets go immediately, and bends in half, clutching his chest, still panting from chasing Castiel.  

The door swings open on a dark room.  The light from the armory that leaks in glints off rows and rows of vague sharpness inside.  Castiel enters.  Sam follows, stumbling, disoriented as he is, because he knows that if that door closes he is not going to be able to get it open again.  What was that spell, on the door?  What was that blackness, in Castiel's veins?  That wing.  The ‘what the fuck’s are piling up too fast for Sam to keep track of, even if he wasn't having to focus so hard on just breathing.

A cold light overhead turns on automatically as they enter.  The floor also lights up.  Like the throne room, the floor of Castiel’s cache is black marble and inset with figures of power.  But where the throne room pulses red and putrid yellow, Castiel’s cache pulses with the uncanny blue of his grace, the gold and green of Dean's eyes.  It's a beautiful mixture.  It is still hot, inside, though.  Hot as the furnace where they disposed of Oraxes.  It is still Hell.  Sharp, and glimmering, and unforgiving.  The light seems like it casts too many shadows.

The room is about fifteen feet by fifteen feet wide, divided by an aisle of silvered marble that runs from entrance to back, breaking the room in two.  The back wall is covered with knives.  They are all in immaculate condition, sharp and gleaming.  Some of them are clearly practical instruments, stainless steel with plain black handles.  Others are more like the golden knife Castiel is currently carrying:  made of precious metals, of bone, of ceramic, ornamented with jewels and carving and gilt.

Castiel throws his dulled golden knife on a table topped with black velvet, where it lands next to a whetstone and a blackened cloth.  He ignores the wall of knives like he is ignoring Sam, and strides directly to a stand of armor.  

Sam recognizes the armor.  It is what Castiel was wearing when he came for Dean in the bunker.  Silver plate with a golden lion, rampant, inlaid on the chest, a cobalt cape hanging behind it, a longsword with a golden hilt gripped in front by crossed gauntlets. It gleams in the light but it does not  _ shine _ with power like it did when Castiel wore it in the bunker.  There is something… floating in the air above it.  Something thick, circular, forged of heavy red gold.  Sam doesn’t recognize it, and he doesn’t remember seeing Castiel wear it before.  A crown, or a diadem? Sam would not be surprised if Dean had given Castiel a crown.   _ He makes them call me ‘Highness.’   _

Castiel is looking at it, like he is trying to make some kind of decision about it.  He has stopped moving for a moment to do this, so Sam tries to get his attention again.

“Cas!  Come on, man, talk to me.  If something’s wrong, I want to help.  But you’ve gotta tell me what’s going on.”  

Castiel looks at Sam, like he has forgotten Sam was with him and is surprised to see him in his cache.  “Dean,” he says, and his face is so hard, his voice so cold, that Sam remembers the apocalypse.  This is the Castiel of the apocalypse.

Sam’s heart drops.  “What about Dean?  Is he ok?  What’s happening?”

Castiel doesn't answer.  He turns to look at an empty armor stand across the aisle.  Empty but for a crimson cape, hanging flat from its shoulder bar.  A cape embroidered with the Mark.  Castiel stares at it.  Sam starts to feel a dropping sensation in his stomach that rivals the electrocution of his arm for his attention.

“His encounter with the Lucifer cultists has taken a turn,” Cas explains, eyes burning into what is obviously Dean's empty armor stand.  “Something is wrong.  He is… afraid.”  Quieter, almost under his breath, he continues, “He should not be afraid.”

Sam tries to take in this information.  “Cultists?  Plural?  You let him go off to fight a  _ group _ of Lucifer cultists without backup?  Doesn't he have hellhounds?  Demon minions?  Or why didn’t  _ you _ go with him?  All the demons say you go nuts if anyone even looks at him cross eyed.”  

Castiel looks at Sam like he is not certain whether it would be more trouble to answer him or smite him where he stands. “That's exactly why I didn't go with him.”  Sam hadn't thought Castiel's voice could get any colder than it was when they entered the cache, but now it is frozen, so much so that Sam thinks the words might start to crack and break on the air.  “If I had gone with him, I would have killed them all.”  

“Wait, are they  _ human _ cultists?  You would have…”

“I would have killed them all.  They did far worse than ‘look at Dean cross eyed’.  They made him party to a Lucifer worshipping ritual.  They tried to summon him away from me.  Several times.  I would have killed them all, killed them immediately.”

“You--”. Sam gulps, not failing to notice that a Cas has issued a death sentence for the crime of summoning Dean away; a crime that was most recently accomplished by...Sam.  Castiel's eyes are cold on Sam's.  He has not failed to notice, either.

“I would not have asked them any questions.  Dean wanted to ask them questions.  He wanted to find out if they needed killing or just ‘scaring straight,’ find out what they were really up to.  There were some… inconsistencies in their rituals, he wanted to investigate.”

Sam looks like he wants to pounce on that but Castiel doesn't let him.  “ _ I  _ would  _ not _ have asked them any questions.”  He repeats, looking severely at Sam, then turns his attention back to the golden object floating above his armor.  

“Ok…”. Sam just lets it go.  Now is clearly not the time to argue.  He remembers how much good it did, to argue with apocalypse Cas. Priorities.  “So Dean is afraid, but is he alright? Is he hurt?”

Castiel shakes his head in frustration.  I can't-- I can't quite see it, he's afraid, and there's blood, there's blood around the edges but it's not his, there's too much of it, and he hasn't been--”  Cas’ words are cut off by a wrecked, gasping, inhale.  “Close your eyes,” he says to Sam.  

“Cas, what--”

“They  _ cut  _ him.  I felt it.  _ Close your eyes. _ ”

Sam does, and he is glad he obeyed instead of arguing more, because there is a flash in the cache so bright that it hurts his retinas even through his closed lids.  He keeps them closed, squeezed tight.  He thinks his lids are burned, maybe his face too, his hands where they extend from his shirt.

“You can open them now.”

Sam does.   _ Now  _ the armor is shining, like he remembers it.  Because of whatever Castiel did during the flash, he supposes.  The gold ring is not floating above it, any more; Castiel is wearing it on his wrist and he is shining, too.  

He has angel eyes.  

“Cas, what, how--”

Castiel clearly does not plan to start answering Sam's questions now.  “Help me,” he says, starting to take the now-shining plate down off its stand.  It looks like it's on fire, it should be burning him, but it's not.  Maybe because his hands are dipped in holy flame, too.  Jesus.  What did he do?

“No.”

Castiel snaps his head around, and pins Sam with his angel eyes.  Sam takes a step back, from the force of that glare.  “What?”  Castiel's voice sounds like it has bells behind it, and drums.  It shakes the knives on their racks and they clink against the wall.

“Tell me what's going on, if you want my help.  You don't have a real great track record of going off half crazed when Dean is in danger, Cas, and I don't know what you just did but it seared my fucking optic nerve through my closed eyes and now you are  _ glowing.   _ We  _ just  _ talked about this.   _ Tell me what is going on _ .”

Castiel narrows his eyes, but they still glow.  Holding his left gauntlet in his hand he takes a step towards Sam.  “I did tell you,” he says, and now his voice sounds a little like there are screams behind it, too.  “They  _ cut _ him.   _ I do not allow this.”   _ His voice shakes the room so hard that one of the knives clatters to the ground.

“Cas--”

“He is the Master.  His skin is sacred.  His body is a sacrament.  It is for  _ worship,  _ but they have  _ rent  _ it, they have cut him, and  _ I do not allow this.”   _ It feels like the whole room is shaking.

“Ok.  So.  Goes nuts when someone looks at Dean cross-eyed, check.”  Sam jokes, but it’s actually way worse than ‘goes nuts.’  Cas has angel eyes.  His voice has become a choir of harps and drums and screams and Sam thinks if there were any light bulbs in his cache, instead of freaky glowing marble, they would all be shattered.  He is calling Dean a ‘sacrament‘ and pulling down a suit of armor that looks like it is covered in holy fire.

What did Castiel  _ do,  _ during that flash?  What is the bracelet he is wearing now, on his wrist?  Castiel is Fallen.  That's what all the demons say, and the angels, and Castiel has told Sam about it himself, about the pain.  But now he has angel eyes.  There is no mistaking them.  What did he  _ do _ ?  Fallen should not have angel eyes, angel voice, light of grace.  Only Lucifer, should have that, among the Fallen.  Lucifer.  Sam shivers.  This is what he was afraid of, as Castiel explained his tattoo, the promise.  This is exactly what Sam was afraid of.  This is Dean trying to claw through stone with his fingernails when he has been separated against his will from Cas.  This is Castiel looking like the goddamned Morningstar when he senses that Dean is afraid.

Castiel blazes at Sam with his angel eyes but his voice is a little softer, only the deepest drums, when he replies.  “They hurt him, Sam.  They cut him.  I can't--”. He doesn't finish explaining what he can't, instead he turns back to his armor stand.  But Sam gets it, he gets this part, without Castiel even having to explain.  Castiel can't sit by and do nothing while Dean is being hurt.  Sam can understand that, and he even can understand that it might feel necessary to Cas to pursue a disproportionate response. Sam happens to think that this response might, just might, be  _ too  _ disproportionate, and he's not sure that Dean should have gone out against Lucifer cultists alone, but this much he understands:  that Castiel loves his brother and won't let him suffer a second more, a scrape more, than he has to.  And If Sam could feel Dean's fear, his injuries, and if Castiel would let him, he'd probably be gearing up with every weapon back in that armory, too, Ill-advised as it might be.  In fact, maybe he  _ should _ be gearing up.  There's a lot he's done for Dean in their history, when Dean was in danger,that's been ill-advised, and worse.

He softens towards Cas.  Maybe Sam isn't the best one to judge, what is ‘too much’ when it comes to Dean.  He still has misgivings, but maybe he should be glad Castiel is Dean's angel full time, now, and has no other agenda.  Maybe he should be grateful.  Wouldn't he protect Dean like this, if he could?

“Cas, I'm sorry.  I get it.  It must be hard for you, to be able to feel his pain.  Let me help.  Give me a weapon.  I'll come with you.”

Castiel looks back at Sam again, sizing him up like a piece of meat.  His voice is breaking glass when he replies, “These cultists should not have been able to penetrate Dean's armor.  They should not have been able to do  _ anything  _ that would make him this afraid.  There's too much blood.  We don't know what their true motivation is.  We don't know who their allies are or what resources they have in addition to whatever cut Dean.”  He's so cold, and tactical, when he assesses Sam, nothing like the craze he went in to when he felt Dean's fear.  Apocalypse Cas.

He holds Sam's eyes.  “It's too dangerous.  I'm sorry.  I can handle them, I promise you.  But Dean would want you to be safe.  Until we know more.  I'm sorry.”

Castiel raises his hand to snap his fingers, and send Sam back to his cell.

“Wait, Cas, no, what about what I want?  I want to--”

“I'm sorry, Sam.” Cas snaps his fingers.  

When Sam says “--help,” he says it to the blank wall of his cell.   

*****

Castiel thought that with Sam gone and not  _ pestering  _ him so much he would be able to concentrate, to channel the icy fury beating in his veins into swift, effective,  _ violent _ action.  He thought he would become  _ destruction _ .  But instead, when he snaps his fingers and is alone in his cache, Castiel feels a frustrating mixture of anger, indecisiveness, and fear. He slides his longsword out of its sheath, checks its sharpness against his thumb (cuts his thumb, bleeds a drop, heals immediately), and slams it back home, too hard.  

He is angry at the cultists.  How dare they?  How  _ could  _ they?  How  _ dare _ they?  Dean should not be  _ touched  _ by anyone but Castiel, with anything but worship.  He is so beautiful, so powerful, so fiercesome.  He is the night and the rush of wings in the darkness.  He is the desert and the heat that burns off the sand.  He is the wind and the shiver as it passes over.  And in all of these aspects, each and every one, he  _ belongs  _ to Castiel, every cell, every movement, every shadow he casts.  The cultists should  _ not  _ get to touch him, to mar his skin, they should not get to have  _ any  _ of him.  Not his blood.  Not one drop.

He is angry at Sam, too, a giant wasp, buzzing around him, buzzing in his ear, making him uncertain. Distracting him, questioning him, refusing to help him. Making him doubt, making him slow, keeping him from Dean, even if just for the seconds it took to explain, and banish him.  No one keeps him from Dean.  Not any more.  Especially not Sam.  Especially not a second time.

He is angry at himself, for letting Dean face the cultists alone.  He knew there was more to it than bored teenagers, like Dean thought, he  _ knew  _ it.  Sam is right, Dean should have gone forth with hellhounds, with demons; Fenris, or Persephone, or even Crowley, who might have helped if he thought someone was trying to bring Lucifer back and usurp him.  He should have made Dean wear plate, instead of leather, he should have cast spells and drawn from grace to surround him, protect him.  Why did he let Dean go, out, away from him, so vulnerable?  Why did he only let Dean call him ‘paranoid’, and give in?  Why did he not protect Dean better?

Castiel draws his sword all the way from its sheath and steps through the motions required for  _ Fire on the Water _ and  _ Breath of God.   _ Angry forms, difficult, strenuous, he is slicked with sweat and breathing hard when he finishes.  They do not calm him.  They do center his anger, a hot coal in the middle of his chest instead of a gasoline fire raging in his blood.  He whirls through  _ Breath of God  _ again, faster this time, the cuts of his blade through air harder, sharper, more vicious.  So fast his sword is only a blur.  

He is indecisive about what he should do next.  He wants to  _ rage.   _ He wants to put on his armor and appear in Iowa like the sun, blinding and searing and undeniable, burn the eyes out of the cultists when they look at him.  But Sam, that mutant wasp, huge and loud and annoying, Sam buzzed in his ear just enough.  Just enough for him to reason with himself:  Dean is only afraid, his cut was small and is already healed, there have been no more cuts.  He is only just afraid and… confused.  Does this warrant Castiel rushing to action, in armor, and grace, holy fire and light of Heaven?  And might he even be being  _ lured  _ out, the way Dean was?  Dean is not calling for him, he would be able to feel that in the bond, whatever is happening, Dean still believes he can handle it alone.  It would be safer to stay here, in the Pit, and wait.  It would be safer, wiser, more tactical, more moderate.  But Castiel  _ rages.   _ He  _ is  _ the Fire on the Water.  He  _ is  _ the Breath of God.  He  _ is  _ as bright and destructive as the sun.  His eyes are flames, and they  _ burn. _

He is afraid of what both action and inaction could bring him.  What if he waits here, and Dean is hurt again, hurt worse?  There is almost nothing that can kill Dean, bearing the Mark, not even Death, but he can suffer pain:  pain of steel, pain of fire, and worst of all, pain of being taken from Castiel.  Pain Castiel would feel, through their bond.  It freezes Castiel into a chrysalis of dread just thinking about it, Dean being taken; it freezes his thoughts in his brain, shuts down his body. A hard, desperate fear.  Dean should not be hurt, not be afraid or in pain  _ ever,  _ but if he is Castiel should be there to heal him, to comfort him.  He  _ promised.   _

His indecisiveness dances with his fear, a quick, whirling, twostep.  What if he goes, and finds that just like the rituals were a lure to entrap Dean, Dean's fear was a lure to entrap Castiel?  They could both be caught out.  They could both be snared in whatever this is that is making Dean so afraid.

He stares at his left gauntlet, in his hand, hangs it back on the armor stand, stares at it again.  He stares at the entire suit of plate, so hard it feels like his eyes are burning in his sockets.  He makes a decision.  He exhales, and unlocks Raphael's halo from his wrist.  He staggers when Raphael's power leaves his body.  Blinks in light that is too dim for his suddenly weakened eyes.

Dean is afraid, but Dean is not calling for him-- this is what finally makes him decide.  If Dean calls, he will answer, he will answer swift and strong and merciless.  He will answer with a sword of flame.  But if Dean does not call him, he will make ready here, in the Pit.  To comfort Dean, to care for him, to allay his fear and his confusion and make him feel safe and warm again.   _Everything you need, everything you want, Forever._ That is what Castiel promised.  That, and himself, _Always._ He will stay here, and not risk being drawn out.  He will keep himself safe.  For Dean.

With great effort, like turning a ship in a thunderstorm against the wind, Castiel turns his thoughts from violence to preparation.  What will Dean need, when he returns?  He may have additional wounds, that require treatment.  But even if he does not, Dean will want Castiel to clean all the blood away.  His, and the cultists’.  Castiel will want that, too, to make Dean's skin clean and warm and perfect again, just like it was when he left.  Castiel will want to come close, to Dean, and touch; his hands careful and slow and purposeful, reverent and gentle over Dean's skin.  He will wash the blood away, and the grime, with warm, fragrant water.  He will rub at sore muscles until Dean sighs closer into his body.  Castiel's hands will take away the blood, and the fear, and the struggle.  He will replace those with warmth, and sweet scents, and his care.  Dean will lean in to him and Castiel will stand strong, and hold him tight in the circle of his arms.   

For these needs Castiel summons a basin of steaming water, scented of sweet citrus, Dean's favorite. He summons also a stack of white linen cloths, soft and clean.  He summons a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a roll of pristine bandages.  He doubts he will have to use these, Dean heals so fast, but preparing, thinking about ways to care for Dean, settles the tremor that vibrates in his whole body, calling for action.  He wishes that Dean could feel it, this calming.  This softness that presses back against the fear.  He wishes he could send it through the bond.

Next in Castiel's concern is his need to oil and fortify Dean's armor--especially the gap between his gauntlets and coat.  He will need to remove all of the blood and gore from these, as well.  He calls forth leather polish, and heavier cloths, but these he sets aside.  Dean's armor will not be an immediate need, when he returns.  Because Dean will not want Castiel's attention to be on his armor.  He will want Castiel's attention to be on the story of whatever has happened.  Or he will want Castiel's attention to be on his body.  _ Mmmmmm _ .  Castiel closes his eyes and breathes in steam and sweet citrus and runs his fingers gently over his own ribs and imagines it, shivering, though it is so hot in the Pit.

If Dean is shaken, and afraid, he will sway in Castiel's arms, when Castiel has cleaned the blood away, until Castiel starts to comb soft fingers through his hair.  Dean will whimper, so soft, under his breath, when he feels Castiel's gentle hands, and he will wrap his body tighter around Castiel but tilt his head back, so Castiel can kiss him, begging him to.  Castiel will.  Dean will break away, too often, overcome by the sweetness, the care, and in these times Castiel will whisper in his ear, “you're safe,” and “I love you,” until Dean starts to tremble.  That's when Castiel will take him to their bed, and lay him down, and brush away his tears.  Dean will let him, but then he will pull Castiel down on top of him, pull him close, and plead in a whisper in his ear, ‘Don't leave me Cas.  Please.”  So quiet, no one will hear it, the Master, who calls a blade that echoes with all the screams of all the violence done by men, pleading with his angel in a whisper, just to stay.  To stay with him and hold him close.  Again, Castiel will.  He will wrap his arms around Dean and let his weight bear down heavy on him and he will whisper back into Dean's ear:  ‘Always.’  And Dean will tremble harder against him, but Castiel's fingers will be so soft, and his hands so warm, that eventually the tremble will still.  And even then, even after Dean is calm and then drowsy and then sleeping, Castiel will hold Dean, and not let him go.

It might go that way; it might be gentle and warm and soft.  

It might go another way.  If Dean is taken by the Mark, if he is black eyed from the violence and the blood, he might want Castiel, take Castiel, own Castiel, immediately.  It might be hard and rough and sharp.  Castiel grows hot thinking about it, his neck prickling.  Dean may materialize inside his guard, inside his personal space, without warning, first just heat, then heavy steam, then solid and real; hard and close against him.  Dean will growl, but he might not say a word before he fists his hand in Castiel's hair to tear back Castiel's head and expose his throat.  Leans in and bites Castiel's neck with sharp teeth that pierce the skin.   He will slide hot, urgent hands under Castiel's loose shirt and scratch his fingernails down Castiel's back.  It won't be enough, just a bite on Castiel's neck and scratches on his back--it's never  _ enough--  _ so he will back Castiel up until his hips are trapped between the hard marble walls of the cache and Dean's body.  He will pin Castiel's arms above his head with two hands, pressing their chests tight together, too close to breathe, while he bites Castiel's lips, fucks his mouth with his hot tongue and Castiel whines beneath him.  He will growl  _ Mine  _ when Castiel whines, and thrust up against him harder, the buckles on his armor clanking and bruising into Castiel's skin.  His hands will be rough when he spins Castiel around, yanks his pants down from where they are slung low without even unbuttoning them, presses a forearm against the back of Castiel's neck.  He knows how much Castiel likes that, now, since the throne room, and Castiel will writhe back against his arm, to feel himself held, and whine again, hands scraping against the rock.  Dean will claw his fingers into his Name on Castiel's skin and when Castiel cries out he will growl again,  _ All mine _ .  He will take Castiel there, fuck him right against the black marble wall, and Castiel will come so hard that he shakes, screaming Dean's name so that it fills the cache and rattles every knife.  He will slump against the wall , and Dean will slump on top of him, too hot, sweaty, covering Castiel's back with his body.   _ Mine,  _ he will whisper again in Castiel's ear, and Castiel will breathe out:  ‘Always.’

Castiel's breath catches, and he is drawn back into the present from his imaginings,  when he feels Dean's focus turn to traveling, through the bond.  He feels Dean knife into the black on powerful wings.  Dean is… carrying someone, Castiel thinks; his wing beats feel too slow, too heavy.  A third party.  

Castiel did not imagine this..  He does not know what will happen, now.  Is the third party an ally, or an enemy?  Alive or dead?  Human or creature?  Cultist or victim?  He does not know.  He only knows that he has ten seconds to prepare himself for this unknown audience before Dean appears.  

He uses his time to choose a new knife.  The white ceramic, with the edge of diamond.  Harder and sharper than anything.  Anything except Castiel, in his rage.  He sheaths it at his back, and kneels.  This visitor will know that he belongs to the Master.  

A dark cloud starts to gather, in front of him.  Black lightning strikes.

*****

Dean is drawn to Castiel through the black between planes like a bullet to a magnet.  He shoots straight to him, with no uncertainty, no deviation.  When he lands in the Pit, his armored feet slide on smooth marble and he is not surprised, when the cloud around him dissipates, to find himself in the center of Castiel's weapons cache.  This is where Castiel would have gone, when he felt Dean's fear.  To make ready to protect Dean, to  _ avenge  _ him.  Angel.  A small dose of warmth breaks open in the cold, writhing sludge inside Dean's chest.

Castiel is kneeling before him, head bowed.  It smells like citrus, in the cache.  Usually it smells like mineral oil, and the metallic filings of a blade.  Castiel has prepared for him, he realizes.  Castiel is ready to take care of him.  Even if he has blood on his hands.  He blinks a tear back from the lid of his eye.

“Cas,” Dean tries to hold his voice together, at least, though his eyes might betray him, but it comes out a little choked, looking at his kneeling angel, still feeling the horror of that garage.  What has just happened still does not form up into any pattern Dean has ever seen before, and his brain spins uselessly around it, trying to force it to fit, trying to find an angle where some corner is familiar.  But though he spins and spins he is unable to grip onto any context, any clue, that would make the scene in Iowa make sense.  Why the rituals?  Why the deaths?  Why the blood, so much blood?  Why the  _ wrong  _ ritual, then why  _ all for him?  Why _ ?  He has had enough of blood, and death.  He does not want anymore of those, has not asked for them.  He has more than enough souls that come to him, on the rack, the natural way.  Even the Mark, has enough.   _ Why? _

Castiel raises his head when he hears his name.  “Master,” he answers, quietly. __ He is unsure of the person Dean has slung over his shoulders, unsure what role he should play for this visitor (captive?  Victim?). His eyes glide deliberately from Dean's (they are green, not black), to Dean's passenger’s slumped head, and back. Assessing.

“Stand up Cas, Christ.”  Dean is so gruff, from holding back the tears.  Not entirely successfully; the gleam under his eyes gives him away.   _ What happened?   _ Castiel wonders at that gleam.

“As you command,” Castiel agrees, pressing his tongue down on his urgent curiosity, waiting for Dean to uncoil just a little bit, and tell him what has happened.  He rises smoothly, and studies Dean's passenger with his full attention.

He is slung over Dean's shoulders and is wearing a cultist’s robe.  The robe is red, when a Lucifer cultist should wear black.  Is this incongruity a clue, to the mystery of what has happened, and who this passenger is?  He is also wearing socks with Birkenstocks; Castiel can see them rising white and bleached and bright all the way up to his knees where his robe is bunched up.  Castiel is utterly indifferent to human footwear, but he knows that Dean has told him that “only tools wear socks with Birkenstocks, Cas,” and he cannot imagine why Dean would take the trouble to bring someone as innocuous as a Birkenstock wearing ‘tool’ back with him to the Pit after such an upsetting incident.  Another clue?

The passenger is also unconscious.  Dean is holding him like a burden.  Over his shoulders like a bag of sand, not cradled to his chest, with care, the way he carries Castiel to and from the Pit. Probably not an _ally_ , then.  More likely an enemy.  

“What is this?”  Castiel asks, voice chilling from his deductions, eyes on the back of Dean's passenger’s head.  He begins to approach, movements liquid, dangerous.  “And why didn't you kill him?”  A tone as sharp as his knives.  He had reminded Dean of the consequences of bringing back an enemy alive.  He had been sure to.

Dean drops the cultist on the ground the same way he was holding him:  like a bag of sand.  The cultist mumbles wordlessly in pain when he makes contact with the marble, but does not seem to be fully conscious yet.  Dean may be keeping him under: Castiel can feel that Dean's mind is very strained, but there are too many causes of that right now for Castiel to sort them all through and be certain.

“This is their leader,” Dean grits out, answering both “what is this” and “Why didn't you kill him,” at once, eyes green-black-green.  

The leader.  Probably the strongest, or the most powerful.  The most dangerous in a fight.  Deliberate, Castiel unsheathes his knife.  His voice pretends to be casual, but it is casual draped over a block of ice, when he asks: “is this the one that cut you, Master?”

Dean's jaw is tight.  “Yeah, but--” his eyes flick, black again for just a second.

“I will have to take him.”  Castiel interrupts as he advances on the crumpled body of the cultist, catlike, sinuous, diamond blade free.  He is not asking.  He is as inevitable as the drift of the continents.

“Yeah, but--” Dean tries to repeat.

“You should have killed him.” Castiel interrupts again.  He is a landslide, and now that he is in motion he cannot be stopped.  Certainly not by words.  Certainly not by ambivalent ones like ‘Yeah, but.’  Bent over the cultist’s body, Castiel caresses a lock of hair back from its forehead with the flat of his knife, and circles the point around its closed eye.  This one does not seem like so much, too Cas.  Not strong, not powerful in magic, his soul dim and wavery. Not like Dean's.  How could this one have done this, to Dean?  Castiel doesn't know. But he will find out.  He tilts the cultist head back with the flat of his knife, and peers at him.

“Too much killing,” Dean answers Castiel's accusation, with no fight in his voice.  His body sags.  “It was fucked up, Cas.”  Castiel looks away from where he is still tracing the cultist’s face with the point of his knife, back at Dean. His eyebrow rises subtly.   _ What happened,  _ he thinks again.  To make Dean so afraid, so confused, so depleted.  For his eyes to flicker between green and black like a flag in the wind.  For him to bring the leader back, the one that  _ cut his skin and made him bleed _ , back to Castiel, knowing what that would mean.

Dean continues:  “We need to know what he knows.  If he knows anything besides what the best episodes of Shark Week are, which I doubt.”

Castiel does not understand that reference.  It does not matter. “We will know what he knows, Master.  We will know it all.”   _ He will pay for spilling your blood.  He will pay for your fear.  He will pay one hundred times.  He will be sworn to your service forever.  I will see to it.  “ _ What happen--”

Dean is not ready to talk about it.  Too depleted, too angry, still too confused.  Talking is so hard for him, and he is so drained by what has happened; it impacted him emotionally, under his skin.  Castiel can feel this through the bond, but Dean also signifies it by interrupting Castiel, before he can even finish asking what happened:   _ “ _ Take him,” he grinds out, waving his hands at the cultist, tiredly.  “Take him and come back to me.”  Need creeps into his voice under the roughness, of this last.

“As you command, Master,” Castiel says again, and touches the cultist with two fingers on the forehead.  He can wait, to find out what happened in Iowa, a little longer, if this is what Dean needs right now.  Time alone, time to think, the cultist taken away and dealt with, this one problem, of all those he must contend with, taken away from him, taken care of by Castiel.  Lifted from his armored shoulders.  Castiel can carry this weight, for Dean.  He will carry it gladly.  He wishes that Dean would give over more of his burdens; he would carry those too.  Till his back broke, and then still from his knees, he would take on Dean's burdens.   _ Anything. _

He takes the cultist, for now.  Light enough, for him to carry.  They vanish, leaving Dean alone in the cache in armor slashed crimson with the blood of others.

 

*****

Without Castiel's eyes holding him together, Dean breaks apart.  It doesn't take long.  As soon as Castiel is gone it's like a high pressure field that was wrapped around Dean, holding back the Mark, vanishes, and the Mark surges to the surface, no longer contained.  Dean's veins all turn black and he feels like he is cracked open at every one of them.  Broken open and spilling heat and anger into the cache.

He tears off his coat, gold buckles flying and skittering on the marble floor, and throws it at the back wall, where it knocks some of Castiel's knives down.  The Mark flares and tickles his veins on the inside, pleased by the casual destruction.  Dean's eyes go black, his vision red.  It was so  _ pointless,  _ the fucking suicides of all those pathetic shit heads.  Why?  For what?  It accomplished nothing.  If he sees their souls on the racks, if somehow they bargain with Crowley and sneak in, he will toss them back.  To Crowley's line, to Purgatory, to Castiel, he doesn't care, but he doesn't want them.  He won't take them. He won't give them  _ anything.   _ He  _ will not.   _ Fucking  _ assholes. _

He turns from facing the back wall, and picks up his armor stand.  It is made of shining cherry wood, iron banded, perfectly fitted and polished to a gleam.  Its perfect smoothness annoys him, so he picks it up and swings it against the nearest marble wall like a baseball bat, breaking it in half and relishing the jagged, uneven splinters that crack through the break.  The Mark glows red on his arm, an ember.  He scrapes the splinters against the gauntlet covering the Mark until they crumble away, then he throws the broken, ruined stick across the room, at the entrance.  This movement carries him towards a table where Castiel seems to be sharpening a knife (Dean recognizes it vaguely:  isn't that the knife Cas was flipping in the throne room yesterday?  Why is it dull, now?  Why does he have to sharpen it?), and he picks up the table, though it is made of heavy, veined, marble, and flips it over, causing Castiel's knife to clatter to the ground.  The Mark thrums through him with every reverberation of the clatter.

_ Goddammit,  _ he thinks into the thrum.  Three people dead, praying to him like he is some sort of fucked up horned deity ( _ and black-eyed _ , Cain wheezes in his head) while they bleed out at his feet.   _ What the fuck.   _ Is this normal for him now? Is this going to start happening all the time, now that he has accepted the mantle of the Pit?  People fucking killing themselves in his name?  Summoning him out away from Cas so they can fucking die in his presence?  No.  No no no no.

_ No _ .  He picks up another table and flips it over.  This one had a copper basin on it that clangs when it hits the floor.  It also spills out a gush of steaming water and a wave of citrus scent.  He picks the empty basin up and throws it on the floor again, because he liked the clang, how it echoed in the cache, how it was bright and metallic and sharp.  This time, he throws it so hard that it dents.  His boots are slapping down on wet marble, now, from the spill, and he picks up the basin a third time and heaves it at the wall.  It flattens on impact.  

The Mark flares brighter.  It is a bonfire inside of him, burning hotter with everything he breaks, everything he ruins ( _ everyone you kill,  _ Cain says with good humor in his mind) and he finds the First Blade in his hand without knowing why or who he is supposed to use it on.  The Mark supplies him a disgusting suggestion:  himself traveling back to that blood soaked garage and killing the two cultists he left knocked out, dismembering the corpses, kneeling in the gore and covering himself in their blood.   _ Offered freely,  _ Cain whispers to him, voice shaky, crazy, murderous, and what the fuck should that matter.  Graphic images of carnage force themselves to the front of Dean's mind, perfect in every detail, scent of blood overpowering the citrus scent in the cache.  Spellstruck, like it his happening to someone else, he watches the visions with obsidian eyes, and runs his thumb over the edge of the First Blade.  His wings shake free, huge and heavy in the marble cavern, and they sweep the room, knocking every knife from the wall, every preparation Cas made from every table.

He takes a step forward, flexing his wings toward… toward the images, toward the bloodbath, towards  _ kill them all _ .  But then his foot splashes down in a puddle of the water he spilled from the basin.  Sweet citrus floods his senses and for a second he can't smell the coppery bite of blood.  In that second, he shakes himself, shakes free of the Mark’s visions.  He doesn't want that.  Dean doesn't want that.  Never.   _ Freely offered  _ though it may have been.  He takes a deep breath, and sends the First Blade away.  The Mark fights him, harder than it has since he took the Pit.  But he is the Master here.  Not Cain.  Not the Mark.  He tries to breathe.

He chokes on his own breath.  Castiel.  He needs Castiel.  He needs the softness that holds back the bloodlust.  More than he needs that poor fucking cultist to spill his fucking guts.  He needs Castiel, right now.

He prays.  Standing tall and rigid in the puddle of citrus water, water now dirtied and swirling with blood washed from his boots, he clenches his hands into tight fists, and prays.  The prayer is short, and desperate.   _ Need you Baby.  Come back to me.   _ He's not sure whether Cas can parse out words, through the bond, so he tries to feel it.  He tries to focus on his need.   _ Castiel. _

It is a moment before Castiel appears.  A moment that feels so quiet, so still, so heavy, in the cache.  Dean feels like he is on the edge of a high cliff, and is tipping over, and this is the last moment before gravity presses down and makes the fall inevitable.  Dean is not sure how he could possibly fall even further than his current depths, but he feels the vertigo, and spreads his wings against it just the same.

But Castiel does appear.  Before Dean falls.  Of course he does.  He can't not, Castiel appearing to Dean's call is and always has been sure as the orbit of silver moon around green Earth, always constant, always returning, always sure.  Dean calls.  Castiel comes.  Because he loves him.  He always has.  He always will.

His hair is somehow more disheveled than it was minutes ago, though, and there is a smear of blood on his wrist.  Not his.  He shuffles a little when he appears, like he is off balance.  Like he heard Dean's prayer and transported so fast his head is spinning.

He takes in the destroyed cache silently.  His lips in a flat line.

“Dean?”  He asks, finally, uncertain.  The room is full of shadowy wings, heaving from the effort of destroying the room, and Dean's eyes are black as night.  Is this only the demon, before him? Is Dean here at all?  Castiel is not afraid.  The demon wouldn't hurt him either.  The demon loves him too.  The demon loves how sweetly he cries out when teeth bite into his shoulder.  The demon loves the crystal shine of tears in his eyes.

“Cas,” Dean completely crumples.  His face contorts and he stumbles backwards against the hard wall of the cache, slides to the ground against it.  His legs sprawl out in front of him and his head bows towards the ground, heavy from the millstone around his neck.  His wings tuck back, and away.  “Cas it was so fucked up.”

Castiel is on him, wrapped around him, in an instant, kneeling in his jeans on the wet marble floor to hang his arms around Dean's neck.  Dean is  _ trembling _ .   _ What happened, in Iowa?   _ “Dean, Dean.  Dean.  It's ok.  I'm here.”  Castiel buries his face in Dean's hair, squeezes his arms tight around Dean's back.  Dean collapses into him, melts into his body entirely, no resistance at all, and hides his face in Castiel's neck, hands clutching at his shirt weakly.

“It's ok, it's ok, ”  Cas calms, hands rubbing up and down Dean's back, trying to comfort him.  It's pretty clearly not ok, not yet; Castiel feels tears dripping against his neck.  Feels that trembles have become sobs.   But Cas will make it ok.  With kisses and whispered words, with his knives and that cultist strangled by his own intestines if that's what it takes.  Castiel will make it ok.  He promises himself that he will, to ease his panic at seeing Dean like this, afraid and empty and sobbing in the destroyed cache.  He kisses Dean's head softly, his hands combing gently into Dean's hair.  He will make it ok.  

“Tell me,” he says.  “You're safe now.  I have you.  Tell me.”

Dean sniffs.  “It was so fucked up, Cas,” he says again, for a third time.  

Cas nods against Dean's head, and twists his fingers gently in Dean's hair so Dean knows he is there, is listening.  He waits.  What is ‘fucked up,’ by Dean's standards, he wonders.  Dean has seen everything.  Twice.  

He doesn't have to wait long to find out.  Dean is ready now.  Destroying the cache emptied him out.  Of his anger, but also his resistance.  

“At first it was just like I thought.  Buncha nerds trying to sell their souls for X-ray vision or whatever, arguing about what they should ask me for, like I'm some kinda genie, like I'm gonna give ‘em three wishes.  And I was just waiting, waiting them out, it was almost kinda funny. But then I got your texts,”

 

_ Love u _  
_ I love you _  
_ Always _

 

“And I wanted to come back home, to you.”

Castiel's cheeks warm up, and he holds Dean closer, sitting back on the floor instead of on his knees so he can pull Dean into his lap.  Dean doesn't resist.  He's so pliant, now, drained.  He wraps his arms around Castiel's waist loosely, and rests his head against Castiel's chest.  His wings cocoon tiredly around them.

“I missed you too, baby.  So much,” Castiel whispers into Dean's hair, where it is now tucked under his chin.  “Needed you to know.  Wished you could feel it.” His whisper is so quiet in the hush under Dean's wings.

Dean nods against Castiel's shirt.  “So I get all demon-ed up, black eyes, First Blade, the works.  And I tell them, in no fucking uncertain terms, that I am not Lucifer, I am not Crowley, I do not want their fucking souls, and if they're smart they will never, ever, ever see me again.”

“What you thought would happen.”  But not the end, obviously.

“Yeah, just like I thought.  I thought it was going great, all according to plan, and then this fucking  _ asshole,  _ this fucking sack of crap with  _ eyes,  _ he rushes me.”

Castiel pauses his gentle stroking of Dean's hair.  “He could not have been a match for you.  You killed him.”  His voice is very low, and very soft.

Dean jerks back and throws his arms out in the air.  Agitation threads jittery and hot through the bond Castiel's fingers had been calming.  “That's just IT, that's the fucking thing, I  _ didn't  _ kill him.  He  _ threw himself neck first  _ onto the Blade.  I didn't even move.”

Castiel sits up a little straighter too.  “He what?”

“And then he grabs me, he grabs me with both hands, and he's  _ dying,  _ he's  _ bleeding out  _ because he just  _ stabbed himself in the neck,  _ and he looks up at me, right in my eyes, and he says ‘All for you.’”

“What,” Castiel asks again, unease stirring in his stomach.  The same feeling he sensed through the bond from Dean, now echoing through him.  

“There were six of them,” Dean whispers, hoarse, bowing his head.  “Three of them died.”

“You--”

“No.  they had their own… they had these fucked up knives, completely useless for fighting--”

“But the leader, he cut you.”

“That's what I was trying to tell you before.  ‘Yeah, but,’ remember?  It was really a mistake, he was just trying to poke me with it to distract me from his friend, and I turned and it slipped through my armor.  Dude was  _ surprised  _ that he cut me.  I turned back around and knocked his friend out like I meant to and then turned back to him and he was still just standing there, surprised.  He didn't mean to cut me.  That's not what those knives were for.”

Castiel understands that different knives have different purposes.  The unease in his stomach starts to roar like the ocean, threatening to drown Dean out.  “What were they…” His fingers clench and release in Dean's hair.  “What were they for?”  He makes himself finish the sentence.

“They were for fucking suicide.  They were long and thin and pointed.  They would have broken off on my armor.  They would have broken in half in a knife fight.  They were for suicide, Cas.  Nothing else.”

Cas swallows, and tries to keep his voice even, so Dean's agitation doesn't rise to panic again, though he does not feel very even inside himself.  “Three of them.  They killed themselves.”

Dean nods.  “Before I got wise and realized they weren't going to fight, started knockin’ ‘em out like fucking whack a mole.”

“How many--”  _ How many were there, that you had to ‘whack’,  _ Castiel tries to ask, but Dean doesn't give him time, the story rushing out of him now.

“And every time, every time they cut one of their own damned throats, they grabbed ahold of me, and told me it was all for me.”  He pauses, and looks up into Castiel's eyes.  “ _ All for me.”   _ His voice breaks _.  “ _ I don't want that, Cas.  I know I'm a demon now, or whatever, and yeah, the Mark loved it, but I don't want that.” His eyes are heavy with tears, when he looks up at Castiel, imploring.  “ _ I don't _ . You believe me, right?”  He sounds desperate, to be believed about this.  The cultists hadn't believed him.  Sam doesn't, not yet.  Almost no one would, could, looking at him with black eyes and black wings and hands and armor covered in blood, in this room, seeing what he destroyed, hearing that he just killed three men. 

No one but Castiel.  Castiel cradles Dean's head against his chest with one hand and holds his other hand to Dean's heart.  “I believe you, Dean.  I know. I know.  It's ok.  I've got you.”  

Dean sobs in relief, and more tears fall on Castiel's neck for a moment, while Dean's hands clutch deeper into Castiel's tshirt.  Castiel whispers, “It's ok.  I believe you.  I believe you, Dean.  I know you don't want that.  You're so bright, too bright, for that.  Too good. You could never want that.”  Dean whimpers, like the praise hurts him.  Maybe it does.  

“I didn't want it.”  His voice is scratchy, from crying.  “But they didn't believe me and they did it anyway and I don't understand why.  Why, Cas? Why?

Castiel doesn't know ‘why’, so he shakes his head, sadly.  He will find out though.  However many times he has to peel the leader's skin away and heal it back and peel it away again, however black he has to roast him, he will find out.  “I will find the reason, Dean.  You will have an answer.  Nothing will be hidden from me.” Cas’ heart hardens, to this task.  He can't be soft, and sweet, for this.  He has to be hard.  Hard and sharp as the diamond edge of his knife.  Hard so Dean doesn't have to be.  Gladly.  Dean is so bright.  He should be protected.  Castiel will protect him, from this.  “I have already begun.” His voice is grim.  “I left him sealed inside a golden sphere, suspended in a plane of fire.  He was scream-”

“Cas,” Dean's voice wobbles.

“He is screaming,” Castiel finishes, refraining from providing other details.  “And I told him that, if he wants to be released from his punishment when I return, he will, first, swear complete and eternal dominion over his soul to you, and, second, answer any question I ask.”  

“Don't want his soul, Cas.  You can have it.”  

“The primary condition of his service to me will be absolute obedience to you and repentance for the harm he did to your body.” Cas doesn't even pause to think about it.

“Cas--”

“He cut you.  He hurt you.  You  _ bled,”  _ he hisses this last out through bared teeth _.   _ Mercy is soft, and he has to be hard now.  He knows how.  Warriors of God are not merciful, in judgement of the wicked.

“Yeah, but--”

Now Cas is the one who can't stop. “No one hurts you anymore.  No one.  Ever.  I do not allow it _.”   _ His eyes spark angel-bright.

“Yeah, but--” Castiel knows what Dean would argue:  that it was only a scratch, that it was an accident, that it's already healed.  Besides the point.  Castiel doesn't need to hear it.

“You are  _ mine,  _ Dean.  All of you.  Your love and your heart are mine, but your blood and your pain are mine too, just as much.   _ All of you.   _ For me.  Not for anyone else.  Ever.   _ Only mine.  I do not allow this.” _

Another tear slides down Dean's cheek.  “OK, Cas, OK. I just… I don't want him to get what he wanted, OK?  I don't want him to get anything, from me.  Just find out what he knows and… Send him away.  Send him to scrape out all the chimneys in Hell, or whatever.  If he has to serve me, let it be like that.”

“He will not be glad he has joined us, Master.  He will not be glad in his heart.  He will not have the pleasure of seeing your face, or being in your presence, ever again.  He will not find comfort here, if he stays for a thousand years.” Castiel will see to that.

“This is a hard place to find comfort,” Dean sighs out.

“That is not what it was made for,” Castiel agrees.  

Dean looks at Castiel for a long moment.  “Will you come with me, Cas?” He asks thoughtfully.  “Just for a minute, will you come with me somewhere better?  Leave your cultist hanging in his sphere, and come with me?”

Castiel blinks.  “Of course, Dean.  Of course.”  _ Always with you. _

“OK,” Dean stands slowly, like his body is sore and he is afraid he might lose his balance. “OK, good.” He holds out his arms to Castiel and Castiel rises, too, and steps into them.  Dean cradles him to his chest.  Not like he carried the cultist.  Not like a bag of sand.  Like he is carrying a glass sculpture, almost too precious and too fragile to touch.  

“I'm sorry I wrecked your place,” Dean whispers to Castiel, as his wings shake free.  

“You can help me put it back together again,” Cas whispers back.  

*****

Dean flaps his wings once and the quiet of the cache is replaced by a white roar.  Because now Dean and Cas are standing on the edge of a cliff face, and a waterfall is pounding down into a rapids a hundred feet beneath them.  Droplets of water rise from the waterfall’s lip and catch the sun in a faint rainbow.  In front of Castiel, green tops of trees follow the rapids unbroken, as far as he can see.  Behind him, a thick rainforest gathers together over and around the roaring water.  Soft, yellow-green moss growing over granite sinks between his bare toes.  Dean releases him, carefully, and sits on a flat, black boulder, made of hundreds of layers of shiny shale.  There is room enough for two on the boulder, so Castiel sits next to him, shoulders not quite touching.

“Beautiful,” Cas says, too soft to be heard over the roar, but Dean hears him anyway. “How did you find it?”

“Spent a lot of time on cliff faces when I first took the Mark,” Dean says, and it doesn't sound like a happy memory.  Of course it wouldn't be, from that time.  “On them, and at the bottom of them,” he says, more quietly.  

Cas doesn't reply.  He remembers the red mud, now.  

“I always liked this one.  Liked it too much to jump.  The roar would drown out the Mark, sometimes, you know?”

Castiel does not know, but he feels Dean calming down as the water rushes by them.

“Do you ever feel like jumping, anymore,” he asks, delicately, afraid of the answer.

Dean looks at him, turns his head from where he had been looking out over the drop.  “No, Cas, no. I--.  No.” He shakes his head, firmly.  

“OK.”

The Mark does quiet beneath the roar of the waterfall, Castiel can feel it.  He feels Dean calm too, his head drains of all the blood and the fear and lets it wash away, down the river.  When the Mark is completely quiet, and Dean is completely calm, Castiel takes his hand.  “I love you, Dean.”

They sit in quiet for awhile, watching the rapids, soothed by their roar.  Dean holds Castiel's hand firm in his own, runs his thumb softly over Castiel's knuckles.  He speaks after a long silence.

“Why'd they do it, Cas?  Did I, do you think somehow I… Acted like I would... want... that? Is that what I am now?  Is that what the world thinks? Am I… am I evil, now? Will I be hunted?  Is some asshole in a plaid shirt gonna show up and stick a sword through my heart?  Is it gonna be Sam?”  Worry threatens to insinuate itself into Dean’s calm.

“Dean,”

“M covered in blood, Cas.  Makin you bloody too.  You shouldn't have to… I should take care of you, keep you safe. Not ask you to hang up some asshole by his thumbs in a plane of fire.”  Dean is silent again, for a long moment.  Thinking.  Castiel lets him.

“You're so…I want to give you better. I should give you this,” He gestures out at the rainforest, “all the time.  Not Hell.  Something beautiful.  Like you.  That's what I'd do if I weren't evil, isn't it?” He stretches out a wing, and wraps it around Castiel, drawing him closer.

Castiel's heart hurts.  “Those cultists:  they attacked you, they wanted you to kill them.  But you didn't.  You could have, you could have  _ hurt  _ them, and you didn't.  You came back to me.  You prayed to me.  You cried because you couldn't save them, and you don't understand why.”

Dean is looking out over the waterfall, but his head dips a little, and he sniffs.  

“You're not evil, Dean.  Evil would have killed them all.  Evil would have rejoiced in it.  Evil would have made it hurt.  Evil would have taken their souls and put them on the rack and given them nothing.”

Dean turns from the water and buries his head in Castiel's chest.  He cries freely, now.  “Cas.  Cas.  Why?  Why?”

Cas pulls Dean close to him with one hand and strokes his hair with the other.  He doesn't know why, though he will find out.  “I don't know why, Dean.” Dean clutches him tighter.  Castiel’s heart aches, again.  He will make it OK.  He will.  

“I love you Dean.  I love you because you try.  Because you care.  Because you want to be good.  And you are good, Dean, so, so, good.  So bright.  So brave. So strong.  The light rises in your footsteps, and the shadows melt away.  It's so beautiful, the way you shine.  The way you shine for me.”

Dean sniffles.“Wanna be bright for you, Cas.  Bright and brave and strong.  Shining, like my angel.  I want that, so much.” Dean's next inhale stutters in,  “But what if I can't? What if I'm not?  The Mark… It… It's forever.  And it wants me to kill.  Cain...”

Castiel understands what Dean does not say.  Cain bore the Mark for a long time, but he didn't even make it to forever, and it took him.  It took him and he went bad.  This is why Sam wants so badly to cleanse the Mark.  This is why he doesn't think ‘Forever’ is a good idea.

Castiel lays his head down, on top of Dean's, stroking the hair at the back of Dean's neck, thinking of his conversation with Sam earlier in the day. “Would you have liked it if we had been together as mortals,” he asks.  “No Mark, no angels.  Would you have liked it if I had a job as a librarian, and brought you coffee in the morning?”

“A librarian?”

Castiel shrugs a little, blushes a little, though Dean can't see it.  “I have nearly infinite knowledge and the full text of every book ever written in my accessible memory.” He pauses.  “ And I like libraries.  They're quiet.”

Dean wipes some tears from his face with the back of his hand, and smiles for the first time since he's been back from Iowa.  Even if it is watery smile.  “Yeah, I would have liked that, baby.  You'd be a perfect librarian.” Cas would be a terrible librarian.  Everyone would be terrified of him.  Of what he'd do to them if they got smudges in the margins, or bent the spines.

Or maybe… Maybe… If they were just mortals, just Dean and Cas, not the Master and his fallen angel, maybe Cas would be softer, easier.  Maybe he would wear big thick glasses and ugly sweaters and always have a mug of coffee.  “I love bees,” or, “world's best librarian” it would say.  And he would do story time for the little kids, and they'd love him because he knows all the stories by heart, and they would come up to him afterwards and wrap their tiny arms around him and he would smile his big, gummy, smile and tell them the story next week was going to be a good one.  A smile creeps up onto Dean's face, imagining it.

Castiel interrupts Dean's reverie.  “Would you have given me a ring, and built us a house, with a view of the mountains?  Far away from everyone else, just the two of us?”

No question.  “If that's what you wanted, Cas, I would have given you that. Like building.  Like the mountains.” He elbows Cas and smiles again.  “You anglin’ for a ring sweetheart?”

“No.” Castiel squeezes Dean's hand in his own and takes Dean's face in his other, to hold his gaze, hold it tight with sapphire eyes.  He speaks slowly and certainly, each word precise and confident, completely serious, completely deadpan, though Dean was playful.  “I want your Name tattooed on my neck in blood, because I want everyone that sees me to know that I belong to you, forever.  I want to cut out the eyes of anyone that looks at you, because you are only for me.  I want to HURT anyone that hurts you. I want to feel everything you feel.  I want our souls to be so entwined, so mixed up in each other, so tightly bound, that they are no longer two, but one.  I want that FOREVER, Dean.  That's what I want. That's the only way it could ever be enough.  Enough of you.  It still might not be.  Even after forever.”

Dean holds Castiel's stare, and blinks.  Once.  Twice.  Three times.  The playfulness is gone, when he replies.  Castiel the librarian is gone    _ “ _ When, I can't touch you, I hate it.  If I'm away, if I can't look into your eyes, if I can't feel your breath.  If I can't see you, if I don't know if you are OK. It's like part of me is gone, chopped off, and it hurts.” Dean looks like he is in pain just imagining it.  “I come back, I always come back, and you hold me in your arms and you kiss me so sweetly.” Cas smiles a small smile, at this, crinkly at his eyelids. “But it …yeah.  It's never enough.” He is silent for a long moment more, thinking.  “It could never be enough of you, Cas, for me, either.  If I gave you a ring and built you a house and made you breakfast every morning; if I picked you up at the library every evening and if the last thing I did every night before I feel asleep was kiss you goodnight, it wouldn't be enough.”

He reaches out and touches his Name on Castiel's neck.  Castiel shivers.  “This, the promise, forever, always, all of that, this is what I want.  Cas, I want it so bad it hurts.  It's worth the Mark, it's worth  _ anything.   _ But I wanna be right for you, Cas, I wanna deserve it.  I wanna be bright and brave and good, for you, like you said.  Just for you.  My angel.” He raises his hand to Castiel's face, so he can hold Castiel's gaze just as tight as his is held.  His eyes are green now, and he shows Cas everything there, his heart, his want, his fear.  And he says, “Don't let me fall. Cas. Don't ever let me… Help me to shine.”

Castiel's eyes tear up.  “Dean.  Never.  Always.  My heart.” And then he can't bear it any more, he can't bear looking into Dean's eyes and seeing the love, and the fear, and the need, and feeling it rushing through him at the same time, wild and strong and unstoppable as the rapids beneath them.  So he closes his eyes and he takes Dean's jaw in both hands and he kisses him, desperate and hard and slow.  

Dean kisses back, with his hands in Castiel's hair.  When he runs out of breath he leans back, and looks at Cas with tears streaming down his face, and whispers “My angel.” He cradles Castiel closer to him, aligning their bodies on the boulder from ankle to hip to shoulder with the flat width of his wing.  “Forever.  No matter what.”

“Yes, Dean.  Always.” Castiel takes Dean's hand in his own again.  He feels Dean's love wrapped around him, through the bond, as real and as heavy as the wing around his shoulders.  He raises Dean's hand up to his mouth, so he can kiss the knuckles.  “Forever.”

They sit together in silence, hands clasped tight, and watch the water fall.  It is beautiful.  It is one moment, of forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a long time between posts. I was sick, and I was working 2 jobs full time, it was hard. 
> 
> I got really caught up in everything that would happen in the aftermath of Dean's encounter with the cultists, so I stayed in the present for this whole chapter. I think that we will be mostly in the past in the next chapter... Cas needs to BAMF out and rescue Dean! 
> 
> 100k words! Yikes! ( *∵* )
> 
> On Tumblr, I am brainheartpizza (https://www.tumblr.com/blog/brainheartpizza). I post unedited excerpts between A03 updates!


	9. On the Cliff‘s Edge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “This is a song the angels sing,” Cas answers, his voice breathy. “This is the song that makes the sun rise.” He pauses a long pause. “This is one of the songs I sang to them, about you. When they didn't understand.”

Chapter 9:  On the Cliff‘s Edge

  
_It doesn't hurt me_   
_Do you wanna feel how it feels?_   
_Do you wanna know, know that it doesn't hurt me?_   
_Do you wanna hear about the deal that I'm making?_   
_You._   
_It's you and me._

\-- Kate Bush, Runnin' Up That Hill

 

\---Present---

They sit in silence, listening to the rush of water over the cliff’s edge.  Their hands are clasped together loosely, fingers intertwined.  Castiel's body is held warm and close to Dean by a shadowy, shimmering, wing that gleams gold when it catches the sun.  His head rests lightly on Dean's shoulder.  When the sun starts to set behind the cliffs, it casts a shadow over the treetops in the valley below, darkening their hue.  Dean pulls Castiel closer, wraps him with his wing a little heavier, to keep him from catching chill in the fading warmth.

“Cas,” Dean is the one to finally break the silence.  Castiel doesn't speak in reply, bound by the long quiet, but only turns his head up to look at Dean. “We hafta go back,” Dean says heavily, his voice sorrowful.  “To find out what's up with those cultists and to explain to Sammy, and to keep order on the racks, and to keep the Mark down.” His list is too fast, like he doesn't believe a word of it but if he says it fast enough he might be able to convince himself.  “We have to go back,” he whispers it the second time, and it sounds like a plea to never go back, ever. Dull against his whisper, the Mark pulses on his arm, reminding him, calling him home to his duty.

“Mmmm,” Castiel agrees, non-commitally.  Agreeing in theory but not in immediate practice.  His eyes are drooping closed, he is so comfortable, he is hypnotized by the rushing water and the long silence and the soft ruffle of Dean's feathers on his bare arm.  Maybe they do have to go back, but not right now.  They don't have to move fast.  They can stay here, and be calm, and slow.  Let the cultists’ leader simmer, in his golden sphere; he will be more ready for Castiel when he returns, then, anyway.  Let them stay here, just a while longer.  Let Dean have this, just a while longer.  Before they return to the bloodshed.

So he doesn't answer.  Instead, he leans in to Dean and starts to softly hum songs of the angels. The song that made this rainforest.  The song that sets the sun.  A tight band of tension leaves Dean's body, and his free hand crosses over to stroke Castiel's hair, bringing their chests and faces closer together.

He sighs softly, before he speaks again.  “Need you like this, Cas.  Beautiful and safe, out in the light. The Pit…” he hangs his head, “it's not right.  Not right for me to keep you cooped up.  Down in the darkness all the time.  This is where you should be.”  Castiel feels a sharp pang of guilt, through the bond.  It is too familiar, that pang.  

Castiel keeps humming the sun to set, and sets his right hand over Dean's heart.  The notes of his song and the beats of Dean’s heart are the same.  Dean can feel it.  His heart beating like the sun.  This is how Castiel shows him:  it is not dark, where Dean is.  Dean is the light in Castiel's heart.  Always.  Only.  It doesn't matter if there are shadows, in the Pit.

“Cas…” Dean's voice is soft, and close. He holds his own right hand up, to cover Cas’ tattoo with his palm.  Hand heart body hand tattoo body hand heart.  They make a circuit that is endless; cannot be broken.  “Need you so much.  I know you can feel it, I know you can,” Dean says quietly.   _I love you so much._ His head is canted in towards Castiel so their faces almost touch, so it is almost a kiss.  There is such soft potential, between them.  Warm and blooming.

Castiel does feel it.  Dean’s need for him fills him up, fills him up so much he almost can’t contain it.  His cock thickens, full of that need.  His song changes.  Now he sings the song that makes the sun rise.  He sings the song that creates the sun; names it bright and golden and shining.  

“What're you singin’, Cas?” Dean asks. “‘S beautiful.”

“This is a song the angels sing,” he answers, his voice breathy.  “This is the song that makes the sun rise.”  He pauses a long pause.  “This is one of the songs I sang to them, about you.  When they didn't understand.”  Which was often.

A lump rises in Dean's throat, and it aches, and his wing pulls Castiel nearer.  Castiel is singing about the sun, and the notes fit the beat of his heart.  Castiel is singing about the sun, but he is also singing about Dean.  Singing that he is brightness.  He is golden.  He is what shines.  This is what he sang to the angels, to try to make them understand why he rebelled.  He sang that Dean was the _sun._

He wants to be that, for Castiel.  But how can he even try?  He is covered in blood, and he will be forever.  The Mark throbs again on his arm.   _Yes.  Ours.  Forever._

He tries anyway.  He doesn't know the songs of the angels, to sing that Castiel is the moon, silver and beautiful.  To sing that Castiel is the star that he seeks out to guide him, in the night, gleaming and always true.  But still, he tries.  

“Everything, Cas.  I need you with everything I've got.  With everything I've ever had.  There's nothing…  There is _nothing_ I wouldn't give you.  Nothing I wouldn't do for you.  If I had the world on the edge of my Blade, I would slice right through it and let it spin out of orbit, on fire; smoking and suffocating, and that would be the end of the world, but I would slice it again and again, for you.  I would give you all the pieces.  I would give you every one.  I would put them back together for you any way you told me how, or I would let them burn away into nothing.  Anything, Cas.  Anything, for you.” His face is still hung so low against Castiel's, his words are heavy breaths on Castiel's cheek.  He _means_ it.  He means every word.  He holds his palm heavy, steady, over Castiel's tattoo, so that Castiel will feel it.  Will _know._

Castiel looks up at Dean. Stars are whirling in his eyes as he continues to sing, sing how the sun lights up the darkness all around it.  Dean can't breathe, looking into those eyes.  How can he touch the infinite hidden there?  A demon, a damned _creature_ like him, touch that light? Without being destroyed?

He doesn't know how, but he wants to.  Oh, he wants to.  The want is sharp, and wide, in his heart, digging into his lungs, making it hard to draw breath. “Let me show you, Cas.  Let me touch you.  Please.” Just to touch Castiel, right now….  He's dizzy from wanting it, from just imagining it.  How it will feel to touch this beauty in front of him, with stars in his eyes.  How good.  Sparks fizz in the tips of Dean's fingers, where they might touch Castiel.  His heart pounds every beat a heavy ‘thump’.

Cas stops his singing, to answer.  The cliff's edge darkens, and grows colder as the echoes fade away.  The galaxies vanish from Castiel's eyes, and all that is left there is black want, just as deep as the universe was before it.  “Yes, Dean.  Please. Show me.” He is out of breath too, from singing and from his own need.

“God, yes, I will Cas -- Castiel.  I will.”

Dean lays Castiel down in the moss.  It is green and yellow and soft and alive under his back.  Dean lays Castiel down in the moss and tastes his lips like he has never tasted them before, like they are sweet with morning dew.  His lips cover Castiel's face with soft kisses.  So careful.  So gentle. So sweet, for his sweet angel, who is more precious than all the armory of Hell, than Dean's own heart.  By far.  “Beautiful,” Dean whispers, breathlessly, when Castiel's lips part and his head falls back and his eyes slip closed.  Innocence and perfection and all the stars in the sky, all lying underneath Dean, trembling for his touch, eyes closed, _trusting_.  Trusting that Dean will make him feel good, that Dean will take care of him.  It is overwhelming.  Dean tries to feel it, deep as he can, how he is unraveled by Castiel's beauty, on the moss, in the fading sunlight.  He tries to let it shine out of his heart as bright and hard and far as he can, like a lighthouse on the shore, so Castiel can feel it too.

Castiel feels it.  He is blissed out, by the sun and the waterfall, by the softness of the moss under his back, by expanding his mind to fit the stars inside.  By the the feel of Dean covering his body, hard cock pressed against his hip, by the look in Dean's eyes, his soft voice, his careful kisses, falling on Castiel's face like the rain.  By the unrelenting waves of adoration pouring through the bond, knocking him over and holding him up at the same time. “Dean.  Please.  You're everything. You have to know.” He holds the back of his fingers up to Dean's cheek, and slits his eyes to look at him.  The last rays of the setting sun flash behind Dean's head.  “Everything, for me.  Sunshine.  Honey.  Air.  Emeralds.  Steel.  You're my heart.  You're the blood in my veins.  You give me wings, again.”

“Want to be, Cas.  Want to be everything, for you.  My angel. “ Dean whispers, taking the hand that was caressing his face and holding it in his own.  Kissing the knuckles, softly.  How can he be sunshine, for Cas?

He lets brightness explode in his mind, in his heart, remembering the first time Castiel smiled at him, even if he didn't understand why, even if he didn't smile back.  Even if Castiel made a joke that wasn't funny at the wrong moment and no one else was smiling.  Even if he had to hide it, at the time, hide the sun burning up inside of him so it wouldn't leak out through his eyes and give him away.  He lets it burn through him, now, though, and he doesn't try to hide it.

“Bright, like the sun,” Castiel says, smiling, and the light explodes in Dean again.  

He kisses Castiel with honey lips and breathes out the air that Castiel breathes in, and it is easy to be these things-- honey, and air-- for Castiel, if that is what he wants.  He can be anything, for Castiel. Castiel's eyes are closed again, braced against the sensation of Dean's kisses, so Dean runs his thumbs against the crinkles that peek from the corners until he opens them.  He loves those crinkles.  He loves how they deepen, when Castiel smiles at him.

He holds Castiel's gaze with an emerald stare.  He caresses Castiel's face and holds his eyes and rides his body firm and slow, hard against the long, thick, press of Castiel's thigh.  He remembers when Cas told him about his eyes, when he Fell.  He remembers that Cas thinks it was worth the Fall, just to see them, and his whole body blushes. His eyes are fixed Castiel's, now, emerald on sapphire, and though he blushes he does not look away as he rolls his body against Cas’.  “So beautiful, for me,” Castiel breathes, like he is high and Dean is an apparition.  “My green eyes.”

“Yeah, Cas.  Just yours.” Breathless.  

He knows how to be strong, for Castiel, how to be steel.  His cock grows fuller, heavier, with every movement against Castiel's body, and he starts to fuck against him longer, harder.  He cages Castiel's body in with strong arms, unnaturally strong.  Inescapable.  Steel.  Castiel's exhales become soft, high, little “uh”s, released on every thrust.  It's sweet and it pierces right into Dean, his cock, his heart, the ache in his lungs.  “Need more, Cas.  Need you,” he pleads.  

“Dean,” Castiel just says.  “Dean, please.”

Castiel's shirt is loose on his body and Dean pushes it up easily.  Cas raises his arms and ducks his head and he is free.  

“Cas,” Dean's hand is shaking when it comes down on Castiel's chest, fingers gripped to Castiel's collarbone like they are gripping the edge of a cliff with a long fall beneath. He doesn't know why his hand is shaking.  He's seen Cas before, touched him before.  Maybe because they are not in Hell.  Maybe because Cas is so beautiful, in the light. Maybe because Castiel sang that he was the sun.  Maybe because he is trying so hard to feel, so Cas can feel it too.  Trying so hard to feel, instead of trying so hard not to.  It's almost too much, this trying, he's not used to it.  But Cas…  For Cas.  Castiel deserves to feel what Dean feels, what is so hard for Dean to say.  Castiel sang that Dean was the _sun._ Castiel deserves to _know._

He looks down at Cas’ perfect eyes and _feels_ at him, as hard as he can, as hard as he knows how, feels this overwhelming wave of beauty.  This protectiveness, for this unmarked, pale, perfect body.  This _love. “_ ‘M’ heart, Cas.  S’ all yours,” he stumbles over a thick tongue, and he holds one palm flat and gentle against Castiel's tattoo again, to make sure, to make really sure.  “All yours, Cas,  M’ angel.”

Castiel arches his back, up and into Dean.  His eyes are wide and wet.  “Dean.  Dean, please, need you.”

God, how Dean's heart breaks when those eyes glisten and beg him, “Please.” He would do anything.  Anything.  It could drive him mad, what he would be willing to give, to Castiel.  What he _would_ give.  Of himself.  What he would take.  From the world.  How he could not be stopped, if Castiel asked him to burn it all down.  How gladly he would do it, for Castiel.  For Castiel's _whim_ .  He sees himself walking, black eyed, through a forest.  It is burning.  His armor is tattered.  His face is darkened with dried blood, his expression cruel, vacant.  He carries the First Blade.  There are no screams, it is silent.  There is no one left to scream.  He is walking, and at the end of his walk he will kneel before Castiel and offer him the world while it burns.  He wants to do this.  He _hopes,_ that Castiel will ask him to do this, so he can show him.  Show him how much he means by _anything_.

“Anything, Cas,” he says again, and he means it, he is ready to draw the First Blade and walk right off the edge of this cliff, and fall, and rise, and burn, and conquer.  

Castiel can feel it, through the bond.  He can feel the heat of the fire, that Dean is ready to start.  He shakes his head.  That's not what he wants.  He can barely talk, between the intensity of the bond and the pressure of Dean's body against him.  He shakes his head again,  “You,” he manages to say.  “More.”

 _More,_ Castiel says, and Dean explodes in heat and light like a firework, sparking and golden.  All that he was ready to offer.  All of the world.  Kneeling at his feet.  And Castiel only begs for more of _him_.  

Castiel will have him.  All of him.  Forever.  He has sworn it.

Dean is still wearing the quilted linen shirt that goes under his armor, and Castiel reaches a fumbling hand out to where it is tied shut at Dean's side.  But Dean doesn't wait, he sits up and tears the shirt off, over his head, ripping out the ties.  And then he is down on top of Castiel again, pressing him into the moss, close as he can get, heart aching from that ‘please,’ that ‘more,’ leaning in as close as he can, smooth chest to smooth chest, rubbing his stubble against Castiel's stubble, his lips against Castiel's shoulder, his neck, just trying to get closer, as close as he can.  To be harder, be sweeter, for Cas.  For his angel.  

Castiel moans beneath him, moans because the sharp stubble and smooth skin and soft lips and hard cock and green eyes, yellow moss, rushing water, are combining into a sensation that is melting his body; all while the gleaming, glowing, perfect firework shine of Dean's heart is flowing into him and melting his mind.  Mind and body, Dean has him, melted in the palm of his hand.

“Anything, Dean.  For you.  Anything.” Hadn't Dean said something like that, before? Or shown him, through the bond?  But Castiel is so melted, it's hard to remember, hard to put nice words together, like Dean did. “The Fall.  Again.  For you.”  His breath is heavy.  It is so hard to talk, to think.

 _No._ Dean thinks.   _No no no no._ He moves over Cas, covering him with his body, hiding him away with his arms.  “Never again,” Dean breathes over him, “No one is going to hurt you like that ever again, Cas.” He brings out his wings, to hide Cas better.  Hide him and treasure him, his sweet, precious angel, and keep him only for his own.  Hide him from everything in the world that might hurt him.  This is how he should take care of Cas.  This is what he promised.  This is what Cas wants.  Not Dean striding through a burning forest.  Not the madness that comes with owning a world.  He wants this.  Dean, above him, around him.  This is what Dean should give.  Will give.

“Wings,” Cas says, joyfully, a tear leaking down his cheek, high out of his mind on Dean and the water and the soft moss, and so, so, delighted.  Dean's wings are so beautiful.  He loves them so much.  And Dean has brought them out for him, to protect him. This is what he wants.  Dean understands.  Dean loves him so well.  His heart grows so large it aches inside him.

He reaches out his hands and buries them deep in Dean's feathers, runs fingers through them.  It feels like putting his hands in a bowl of lightning.  The shocks travel up his arms, through his whole body, and he shudders.  But he doesn't let go.  He strokes and Dean thrusts in time against him, over and over, Dean's arms caging him in, Dean groaning and kissing and sucking on his shoulders with a wet, hot, mouth.  It feels so good.  Dean is protecting him.  Dean is _feeling,_ for him. Dean is fucking against him, hard and slow.  Dean is all around him.  Dean is everything.  “ _Yes,_ Dean, _this._ My _hero._ My _everything.”_

Dean replies with a strangled cry.  He's no hero.  He never has been.  But he can be, he will be, he wants to be, for Cas.  He imagines a different walk, through the forest.  He is striding through the trees, again, the same trees, but this time he is wearing gleaming plate and a bright light blurs around him.  Flowers spring up behind him, in his footsteps.  Forget-me-nots.  The color of Castiel's eyes.  At the end of his walk will be Castiel, standing in a clearing, in a shaft of light that slices through the trees.  Dean will kiss him, and tell him that the world is safe, again, and offer him a golden crown.   

He can't bear that there is clothing between him and Castiel, anymore.  “More, Cas, need more,” Dean pants above him, and Castiel pleads, “ _Please,_ Dean, yes.  More.” and digs his fingers into Dean's wings deeper.  Dean arches down against him, just for a moment, in response, his breath frozen, then grabs for the button of Castiel's jeans and pulls them down, pulls off his own.  His movements are disjointed, jerky, freezing every time Castiel reaches the end of a preening stroke and starts another.  But when the last foot is freed from the last pair of pants and Dean lowers himself down over Castiel again, both now naked, finally, the inhale of Dean's breath is sudden and awed, like the start of a desperate prayer, and Castiel cries out, beneath him.

“Dean,” He cries, his voice broken.  He reaches down as far as he can and buries his fingers into Dean's wings as deep as he can and drags them up, slow, hard, knocking every feather out of place.  He knows what this should feel like for Dean; remembers from when he had his own wings, though no one ever touched them this way.  And he can feel it, through the bond, that his touch on Dean's wings feels like a touch on his soul.  He strokes Dean's wings in time with Dean's thrusts against him and imagines that he is fucking Dean's soul.  That he is fucking him in a place that is so deep no one else can ever reach.  No one but Castiel. He groans at the thought, and his dick twitches, leaking and hard against Dean.  On his next stroke, he thrusts his hands in deeper, rougher, harder.

“Unnnggghhh,” Dean pants out, an inhuman groan,  his own dick leaking now too.  “Cas, God, I don't know how… What… feels so good, don't stop.  Just…  Don't stop.” One of his hands catches in Castiel's hair, and the other reaches down to grasp their wet cocks, to hold and stroke.  His wings still hide them from the world, and Castiel wraps his legs tight around Dean's back, pulling him in, pulling him closer, harder, as they rut and strive together.  It feels… God, it feels, it feels like Dean has become the rushing water, it feels like he has become the sun.  It feels like he's flying and burning and falling and dying.  And it's not _enough._ He opens his mouth, to beg Cas for more, to offer him anything, his soul or his heart or all his powers for _more,_ to be _closer_ , but before he can make a sound, Castiel speaks first.

“More, “ Castiel cries, _“_ Dean, _please,_ more, I need you, I need,”

Dean bends Castiel in half.  He doesn't wait one second.  He grabs Castiel’s knees and throws them over his shoulders and bends him in half and finds his hole with his tongue.  Long, flat, wet, laps.  His tongue tasting, pressing, again and again.  Castiel's hands clench in Dean's wings and Dean jerks, certain for a moment that that's it, he's going to come, before he even gets inside, but he bites his lip and thinks of England and rides it out.  “Dean, please, please, now, more, I need, I can't” and he _writhes_ forward against Dean's face, spearing himself on Dean's tongue, so hard, so close, that Dean can't breathe.  

Dean withdraws.  “Gotta open you up, Cas.  Gotta take care of you.  Gotta open you up, nice and slow,” Dean doesn't know how he's going to do that, last through it without coming, with Cas rutting against him so desperately, but he knows it's what he has to do.  He feels a moment of uncertainty about how to proceed, because he didn't bring any lubricants with him on this field trip to the one cliff he never jumped off of.

Castiel feels Dean's hesitation through the bond, understands it.  “Dean, let me, please,” and he sounds so broken, so desperate, that Dean leans back, giving Castiel room, though he's not sure what Castiel is going to do.

Castiel buries his hands deep in Dean's wings then, again, and Dean _groans,_ and then he understands what Castiel is going to do because now that he's not distracted by the taste of Castiel on his tongue, the scent of him overwhelming in his nose, _everywhere,_ the feel of Castiel fucking against his face, he can notice that his wings are _soaked, sopping_ with oil.  They are _laden._ His oil glands have been pulsing and seeping with every stroke Castiel has taken and he has been leaking, _dripping_ with it every time. “Cas,” He exhales, an animal moan rolling out of his mouth, long and loud on the cliff's edge.

It drops an octave, grows rougher, deeper, fades into the roar of the waterfall when Castiel's hands, slick and shiny with Dean's own oil, reach down to spread himself apart. “Cas,” He groans again.  “Cas, God...you.”

“Want you inside me, Dean.   _Need_ you.  Need to feel your cock, filling me up, coming inside me.  Need to be dripping with you.  I need… I need...” He starts to lose the thread as he adds a second finger, starts to feel full, starts to imagine what it's going to be like to have Dean inside.  How hot and tight.  “I need,” He tries again, but he just can't find the words.

“Ssshhh, baby, I've got you.  My angel, gonna take care of you, give you just what you need, make you feel so good, I promise.  So good, Cas.” He strokes his fingers back through his soaking wings, and when they come forward glistening with oil he gently pushes Castiel's hands away and starts working on him himself.  Castiel's hands go back to Dean's wings, but now he is just trying to hold on, hold himself down so he will not float off like a balloon and pop.  His hands hold Dean's dripping wings tight as his body shakes and rolls and fucks at Dean's fingers and his cock strives and leaks against his stomach.

“More, Dean, please, _more,”_ he begs, his legs wrapping around Dean's back and trying to bring him closer.  Bring him _inside._  “ _Please.  You,”_

Dean lines three fingers up, thrusts them in to Cas, leans back and assesses how Cas’ puffy hole takes them in, slick and shining and surrounded with Dean’s oil.  He inhales sharply as the slide in, sheathed tight in Castiel.  “You ready, Cas? I don't want to hurt you.” _I never want to hurt you._ A wave of protectiveness, sweet and sharp, passes through the bond.

 _“Dean, please.”_ Cas’ eyes are leaking tears, his fingers are clenching on Dean's wings.  “Please, please, more.”

“Shhh, OK, angel OK.  Dean’s hands circle Castiel’s thighs to hold him just a little bit still.  He lines himself up and… ahhhhhhh.  He sinks in.  Sinks and sinks and sinks.  It feels like he’s falling, it makes him dizzy as he sinks inside.  His head falls back and his eyes roll shut.  “Cassssss,” he groans.  “Cas.”  

Cas mewls wordlessly, releases Dean’s wing with one hand and scrambles it against his thigh until he finds Dean’s, pulls it free from his thigh, grips it tight.  “Dean.  Please.  Dean.”

Dean starts to move.  Slow and hard and long.  The hand that is not gripped tightly in Cas’ slides up Castiel’s body, to weave into his hair.  “Cas,” he can’t stop whispering.  “Cas.”  He fucks Castiel as deep as he can.  He remembers what Castiel asked him for, before they last parted.  As deep as he can, as long as he can, as hard as he can.  He sets himself to it, though his whole body is shaking and his heart feels like it is going to beat out of his chest and he just can’t stop whispering, over and over, “Cas.  Castiel.”  He fucks Castiel like that, tender and slow, holding his hand.  He fucks him on the cliff’s edge, as the water rushes by and the sun sets behind the forest.  

It is beautiful.  It is perfect.  It feels like Dean will always be inside Castiel.  It feels like he always has been.  It feels like they can never be parted, that they are one.  

And it’s not _enough._

“More, Dean, please, more,” Castiel begs, his voice crazed, desperate.  His hair is wild, from Dean’s hand lost in it, from the salt spray of the falls blowing against it.  

Dean shrugs Castiel’s legs off of his shoulders, and Castiel immediately wraps them around his back.  Then he leans forward far as he can, so he can kiss Castiel, hard and hungry.  Castiel opens up so beautifully for him, so soft, so welcoming, like always, and Dean fucks his mouth with his tongue like he is dying of poison and the antidote is inside.  The hand in Castiel’s hair slides down to press over Castiel’s tattoo, and Dean’s wings close in, covering Castiel’s skin  with silk and lightning everywhere it is not already covered by Dean’s body.  

Castiel’s vision fizzes out, and he screams, being so full of Dean, covered with him, his body, his tongue, his wings, his scent, the desperate feeling of need, of _want_ , of _love_ breaking over him through the bond.  

And it’s not _enough_.  

“Dean, more, please, please, more,” he pants.

Dean wraps his body and his wings around Castiel as tight and close as he can, but Castiel keeps panting, begging, “more, Dean, more, please,” and Dean feels it, he feels that they are on a wave that is rising and rising, so fast, so high, but not anywhere close to cresting.  As high as they rise, they can go higher still.

But he doesn’t know how.  “Cas,” he breathes, still pressing kisses to Castiel’s cheekbones, the corner of his mouth.  “I need… but how… what--”

“My soul, Dean, touch my soul.  Please.  I need…”  his legs squeeze tighter around Dean’s back.  

Dean recoils, just a little, little as he can while inside Cas, Cas’ legs wrapped around him, holding both of Castiel’s hands.  He remembers when Castiel used to touch human souls as an angel.  He remembers that it was _painful_ .  Even when Castiel was being careful.  Even when his touch was light.  And that was the touch of an _angel_ .  Dean has the power to touch souls too, he has to, in order to put them on the rack and hurt them there.  And that it is what it is.  It is the power to _hurt_ souls, to tear them apart.  To remake them into something new, no longer shining but dull and grey and sad and ready for eternity in Purgatory.  

“Please,” Cas repeats, “Please, Dean, it’s not _enough_ , I know you can feel it, _please_.”  

“But Cas, doesn’t it… won’t it… won’t I… I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t, you won’t, please Dean.”   Castiel looks so sure.  And Dean cannot resist him, when tears are glistening in his eyes like that.  “Please,”  

Dean releases his right hand from Castiel’s grip.  He flexes it.  With two fingers, he touches lightly, up and down Castiel’s chest, looking for a place.  Looking for the right place.  Castiel’s soul is silver, it sparks, and right now it is _vibrating_.  Like it is trying to dig through his skin and reach out to Dean.  Dean’s fingers slow just under Castiel’s heart.   Circle around his heart and return to the same spot, just underneath.  

“Please Dean, please,” Castiel breathes, just breath, unable to even speak, anymore.  

Dean presses his two fingers against Castiel’s skin, and then _through_.  

Castiel screams.  Silver light streaks out in blinding rays.  Dean comes, immediately, comes and comes like a fountain inside of Castiel, over and over.  Castiel comes, his body wracking with spasms and his vision gone completely white, screaming until he is hoarse.  

Dean tries to remove his fingers, frightened by Castiel’s scream, but Castiel’s left hand strikes up, strong and adamant, and holds Dean’s fingers in place.  His other hand buries itself in Dean’s wings, and Dean shivers.  “No,” Castiel croaks.  “More.”  

“But Cas, you,”  

“ _More_ ,” Castiel orders in a breathless voice.

Dean’s body is spent from his orgasm, loose and easy and glowing.  He feels such tenderness for Castiel, such protectiveness, and he tries to focus this into his touch as his hand presses forward into Castiel’s chest.  He tries to be gentle.  He tries to cherish Castiel’s soul, best as he can with his demon’s power, to hold it and protect it, not tear it apart.  He tries to make his touch like feathers, not like claws.  He bites his own lip so hard it bleeds, concentrating on this touch, so that it won’t sting, so that it won’t burn.  

“‘S it hurt, Cas?”  His voice is deep with concern.  Castiel doesn’t answer, right away, so he looks up from where he is concentrating on Castiel’s chest, to Castiel’s eyes.  They are closed.  Cas’ hand tightens around his wrist.  

“No, Dean, no.  It feels…. I wish you could feel it.  It feels like…” he brushes the fingers of his free hand through Dean’s wing and Dean shivers.  “It feels like we’re finally _together_.  The way we should be.  It feels like we are one.  It feels like I have all of you.” His eyes open to slits, and he pulls Dean down, to rest against his chest.  “How does it feel, for you?”

“Cas,” Dean’s voice breaks, trying to answer.  He hugs Castiel close with his free arm.  He doesn’t have the words.  “I… I wish we could have this, forever.”

“We can, love,” Castiel whispers, fingers caressing up and down Dean’s bare bicep.  “We will.”  Then, almost shyly, he asks, “Can you see me?”  

Dean doesn’t understand what this means at first-- of course he sees Cas, Cas is right beneath him.  “‘Course Cas,” he says, smiling.  He brushes a crazy strand of hair back from Castiel’s forehead.  

Castiel smiles too.  “No, I mean.  Can you see me?  Castiel?  Not this vessel.‘I’m approximately the size of your Chrysler Building.”  The crinkles around his eyes grow deeper.  

Now that Dean understands what he means, he can-- sort of.  It’s sort of there at the corners of his eyes, little flickering silver shadows that make an outline he can’t quite resolve.  An outline of something that’s not really there, on the cliff.  

He closes his eyes, and rocks his hand in and out of Castiel’s chest, just barely, a millimeter at most, just rocking, getting a feel for the shape and the feel of what he has his hand in.  Lights flicker behind his eyes, silver and sparkling.  Then Castiel groans, and instead of a few lights, there is a _swarm_ of them, too many to count, each one a perfect, crystalline star.  They wrap around each other, spiraling upward, outward, to the edges of Dean’s vision and beyond, moving so fast that Dean feels like he is falling, though he is stationary on the hard, wet, moss-covered rock of the cliff.  The stars swirl and pulse, so many of them, in so complex a pattern, that it fills all of Dean’s mind until it is expanding at the edges.  

Then he is not only Dean.  He is not only the Demon.  He is infinite.  He is space, he is time, he is light.  He is everywhere at once.  

“Cas,” he breathes, though he can barely hear his own voice, so far away, such a tiny sound, in such a tiny space.  “Cas I can see you.”

The stars pulse brighter.  Each and every one.  

“I can see you,” he says, breathlessly.  “So beautiful, Cas, God.  I never…”  He is crying.  Tears are streaming down his face with no restraint.  He can barely feel them on his own face, but he sees them in the stars, which stream too, and coalesce, all around one point.  One star that is not silver like the rest.  A star that is a bright, gleaming, emerald.   _Dean_.

“Is that… Cas is that me?  Am I… Am I part of your _soul?”_   

“See me, Dean,” Castiel says, still smiling, and strokes Dean’s face.

Dean sees.  There he is.  Sunshine.  Honey.  Air.  Emeralds.  Steel.  Heart.  Blood.  Wings.   _Everything_ .  The stars stream around him.  The hold him close and whisper to him.  They whirl around him and protect him.  They cry when he cries.  They tint emerald, where they are close to him, and they fade, dimmer, just slightly dimmer, where they are far away.  They stretch off into the distance, farther than he can see, farther than anyone can see.  “ _Forever,_ ” Dean whispers, under his breath.

“Always,” Castiel agrees, and takes Dean’s hand in his own, lacing their fingers together.  “ _Yours.”_

Dean’s heart beats and he can see it pulsing in the stars as they dance.  This is how Castiel knew that Dean’s heart beats like the song of the sun.  He can hear it now, that same song, like he is the one singing it.  Like he has always been singing it.  Like it is a part of him, like he really is golden.  Bright.  The one that shines.

He is _not_ evil.  He is _not_ covered in blood.  He has _not_ subjugated Cas to pain and darkness.  He is the sun.

“You saved me, Cas.  “You always save me.”

“Yes, Dean.  Always.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a straight-up PWP. Sorry, not sorry.
> 
> And, this fic is now officially >3x dissertation length (!). 
> 
> On Tumblr, I am brainheartpizza (https://www.tumblr.com/blog/brainheartpizza). I post unedited excerpts between AO3 updates!


	10. Castiel Rises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is not like being an angel again. This is like being an angel that has snorted all the cocaine in the all world and followed it up with strapping himself to the fastest satellite flying the highest over the Earth and then setting his face on fire. This is what it feels like to be able to do anything.

Chapter 10:  Castiel Rises 

_ The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who in the name of charity and good will shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers.  _

**_And you will know my name is the Lord_ ** _ , when I lay my vengeance upon thee. _

_ \-- _ Ezekiel 25:17

 

\---Past---

“Feathers, “ Crowley greets, from where he leans casually against a table covered with amulets near the front of Hell’s armory.  His hands are clasped in front of him, and he stands straight when Castiel appears.  “The armory is yours.”

He gestures.  Indeed, there are no other demons present in the armory.  Or at least none are visible to Castiel’s naked eye.  

“And the library?”

“Also empty.”

Castiel ignores this as though Crowley's words are worthless, as they might well be.  Face set arched in cold stone, he remains silent, and holds Crowley's gaze.  

Crowley raises one eyebrow.  “What, you don't trust me?  That hurts, Feathers.  Makes me feel ‘less than’, you know?  We made a deal.  I  _ never _ renege on a deal.”

Castiel knows that this is actually true, that all of Crowley's power is held in the deals he makes, and that to go back on them, even on one, could weaken him, ruin him.  But he also knows that Crowley cannot be trusted not to make...  _ interpretations _ on a deal.  Castiel realizes, now that he is facing Crowley, and now that the fury of Crowley’s request to kiss Dean has died down and he can think straight, that he asked that there be no  _ demons  _ in the library, but that does not preclude there being  _ hellhounds  _ in the library, or  _ witches _ sworn to demons, or just plain old murderers, off the racks.  And all Castiel has to defend himself is his single iron fire poker, still clutched in his right hand.  His hand tightens around it, and Crowley raises his eyebrows.

Castiel does not want to have to explain himself.  “The library?” He asks again, before Crowley can say anything.  

Crowley shrugs, and turns in the direction of the library.  He doesn't need an explanation from Castiel, anyway; it's pretty self-explanatory, to Crowley's eyes, why Cas is barefoot and dressed in a blanket and carrying a fire poker.  Angel's gone deranged.  He is pining for the fjords.  He is an ex -parrot.  Gone round the bend, totally lost it, with Dean taken from him.  Pretty much par for the course, for those two; Crowley is almost never surprised, and he's not now.  He imagines, correctly, that Dean is probably even worse off than Castiel.  Squirrel does  _ not  _ tolerate being separated from Feathers very well, even less so, Crowley imagines, since that oath they made to each other that cracked half the floors and ceilings in Hell.

“Oh ye of little faith,” Crowley tosses back over his shoulder as he leads.  “Or rather, little faith in anyone but Green Eyes.  Keeps getting you in trouble, that.”  _ It's getting you in trouble right now,  _ Crowley thinks. _  Dean is not going to like it that you dealt with me, and you know it.  Though he probably won't try to kill  _ **_you_ ** _ for it. _

Castiel has decided that, despite his failure to do so in negotiating this deal, he is going to ignore Crowley's petty jabs.  He ignores this one.

Answered with silence, Crowley turns around to see if Castiel is actually following him.  Seeing that he is, he shrugs again, and keeps walking. “I see, I don't have the fun version of Feathers, my old mate that helped me break into Purgatory.  Quite a caper, that.  No, I have the ‘grim face of angelic constipation.’ Not a fan of this one, to be honest.”

“I'd be disgusted with myself if you  _ were _ my fan, serpent,” Castiel spits back out at him.

Though Cas can't see it from behind, Crowley rolls his eyes.  Cas  _ can _ see the hand puppet that Crowley makes at shoulder height to say Castiel's lines when he replies.  “Oh, don't worry, I get it,” He takes on a high, mocking voice.  “‘You're so evil Crowley, I'd kill you if you weren't so useful.  I'd kill you if I wasn't as weak as a fluffy kitten.  I'd kill you if your mandate wasn't keeping my tiny mopey boyfriend on his tiny, mopey, throne.’” He drops hand puppet Castiel and returns to his usual smokey brogue.  “Lotta ‘ifs’ there, dear heart, afraid it's not very menacing _.” _

Castiel remains silent again, not wanting to have to address the suggestion that he is ‘weak as a fluffy kitten.’ They both know it's true.  Regrettably, though, they still have half the football field sized armory to go, so Crowley just keeps talking over the silence, in love with the sound of his own voice, as usual.

“ _ Both  _ you  _ and _ Green Eyes are  _ much _ more evil than I am these days, anyway, has that occurred to you?” He doesn't wait for an answer.  “I don't suppose so, or you'd be a little more selective about who you called ‘Serpent.’  Downright hurtful, that.” He takes a deep breath, gearing up for the next part of the monologue, like he has practiced it.  Maybe he has.   “What do I do? I put bad people in a line.  I give people their heart’s desire, for a fair and mutually agreed upon price.  Meanwhile, Demon Squirrel is out on the racks, torturing souls until they aren't even recognizable any more.  Making a bloody mess.  And you!  Sent him out to clean out Heaven!  The entire underworld,  _ combined _ , has been working on that for  _ all of eternity _ , with piss-all to show for it, and you crook your little finger and, hello, what do you get? A stack of bloody halos piled on your bloody nightstand!  It's  _ unbearable.” _

Castiel maintains his stony face and does not react outwardly, but internally he notices that this is the second time Crowley has specifically complained about Dean piling angel halos on his nightstand.  From this Castiel deduces two likelihoods.  First, that Crowley really does want a halo for the reason he gave, which is that they are vanishingly rare and therefore valuable to a collector.  Second, that there must be some hidden power in the halos that Crowley knows about, and it frustrates him that Dean is obtuse to that power, and is ignoring it instead of using it.  

Castiel resolves that, assuming the library is indeed empty and he does not need to fight for his life, his first action when he reaches it will be to research the heretofore unknown (to him) powers of an angel’s halo.  Perhaps  _ Raphael  _ can be counted as an asset, that can help him accomplish his rescue of Dean _.   _ Perhaps it can give him the power he needs, that he hoped to find in the armory, to break through the wards on the bunker. __ It is plausible that Hell’s library has information on the topic of halos that Castiel is not aware of, despite having been an angel, as, first, where else would Crowley have learned whatever he knows, and, second, there is a lot of information about Lucifer and what was done in Hell to the other Fallen that Heaven does not possess.  Lucifer didn't write home, after the Fall.  The lines of communication were cut, burned, and abandoned, Heaven's messengers killed and sent back mutilated.  

Castiel holds his hope that Raphael’s halo will help him in check, holds it tight, like his iron poker. Raphael was an archangel, his powers were vast, almost unknowable, even to Castiel.  There is much that Castiel could do in Dean's service, with only a fraction of that power.  

To Crowley's monologue he only replies “I had no idea your feelings were so delicate, serpent,” in clipped, disinterested, tones.

Crowley waves a dismissive hand back over his shoulder, and continues to mutter as they walk, as much to himself as to Castiel. “...And how many times have I ever almost destroyed the whole world because of my co-dependency or daddy issues or some morbid combination of the two?  A half a time at  _ most _ , and who was responsible for the other half of that one?  Here's a hint, it had blue eyes and black feathers and the most poorly concealed boy crush in the history of boys. Or crushes.”  Crowley’s really gaining steam, now.  “Did  _ I _ literally open the gates of Hell as part of an inconceivably unlikely to work revenge plan?  Did  _ I  _ kill Death and release primal Darkness out of pure stubornness? Oh, but  _ Crowley _ is the evil one.   _ Crowley  _ is the ‘Serpent.’  Gets old, is all.”

Yes, Castiel is sure now, Crowley has practiced this recitation before.  Maybe at night, in his bed, when he couldn't sleep because Dean was out howling at the wolves without him, having spurned his advances.  Maybe having implied, or outright stated, that he was too good for Crowley.

It's almost, almost, enough to make Castiel feel sorry for him, thinking about how rejected he must have felt then, how alone.  Because this is the thing about Crowley, this is what makes him so dangerous,  _ none of what he says is a lie _ .  Every word is true.  Maybe his interpretation of his role in the underworld is twisted, and maybe it conveniently ignores a lot of what Crowley does (e.g., what happens to the souls he comes to ‘fair and mutually agreed upon’ deals with), but he’s not wrong, he’s not lying, not a word.  Crowley  _ himself _ is more of a power broker than an evil doer or a lover of violence.  And it probably  _ does  _ get old, to be spurned by people who call on him for help, over and over, who he does, reliably, help in times of desperate need.  Who he cares about (at least in his own smug, aloof, way.  At least in Dean's case).

And Cas and Dean  _ have _ caused a lot of trouble lately.

And Castiel is about to cause some more.  It is not  _ Crowley _ that is about to break in to the Men of Letters bunker.  It is Castiel.  It is not  _ Crowley  _ that is ready to do violence there, to free Dean.  It is Castiel.  In this particular instance, Crowley is a neutral party, and it is Castiel that is the aggressor.  

Maybe he won't call Crowley ‘Serpent ’ anymore .  At least not for a while.  At least not until Crowley tries to deal again for a kiss from Dean.

As Castiel decides this, they arrive, finally, at the entrance to the library.  Crowley places his hand on a golden plate, located where a doorknob should be, and it faintly smokes red before clicking open.  “It will open for you too,” he explains, and then gives Castiel a significant look “but NOT for any of the other demons.  Not while you are inside.  That was the deal.”

Castiel brushes past him, without responding, and comes to a halt when he enters the library.  It looks like… it looks like a human library.  Not a very old one, not like Alexandria, or Atlantis, but not like a modern one either.  The computers are too big and clunky.  There are too many books.  It is not what he expected.  There are no volumes covered with skin and faces.  There are no candelabras. There are fluorescent lights, that buzz, and flicker.  “Is it  _ air conditioned? _ ” he asks, before he can help himself.  

Crowley stands just behind his right shoulder and smirks.  “Only room in all of Hell with central air.”  

Castiel draws his blanket around himself tighter.  It is going to be cold, in here.  “Has it always--”

Crowley interrupts him.  “No, only since your boyfriend took over.  It used to be more what you’d expect, ink of blood, spiderwebs, the whole nine.  No.  This is the Kansas City Public Library.  Circa 1985, if I’m not mistaken.”  He shakes his head.  “I’m surprised that Squirrel even knows what the inside of a library looks like, to be honest, but he does always surprise us, doesn’t he?”  

Castiel once again ignores Crowley’s insult, and turns to face him.  “That will be all.”  He turns back around, dismissively.

“I’m afraid not, Feathers,” Crowley says, voice suddenly dangerous, all traces of bemusement about the library gone, revealing a cold, hard, iron core.  “We had a deal.  I kept my end, as you can see.  Now you keep yours.”  

Castiel turns another time, more slowly.  He withdraws  _ Ion _ from his pajama pocket, being careful to keep  _ Raphael  _ concealed under the wrist of his sweater.  He holds  _ Ion  _ out, but when Crowley reaches for it he withdraws it slightly.  “Why do you want this, Crowley?  It’s not worth anything, it has no powers without grace.”  He doesn’t think Crowley will answer, but he hopes that his non-answer may give something away.  Anything, any hint.

Crowley is too slick, for that.  He doesn’t even look up at Castiel while he speaks, his eyes fixed on the halo.  “Sorry, Feathers, ‘spilling my guts while I braid your hair’ wasn’t part of the deal.  My reasons are my own.  Now.  My halo.”   He holds his hand out, expectantly.  

Castiel reluctantly hands it over.  With some effort, he refrains from flinching when Crowley takes it away from him.  He’s not sure what he thought would happen, maybe that Crowley would instantly become 100 feet tall, maybe that he would instantly be evaporated by a lance of angelic grace, but there is no angry chorus of angels, there is no flash of light or billow of smoke or spark of holy fire.  There's nothing.  Nothing at all.  Crowley doesn’t even really look at it, in one moment it is held in his hand and in the next it has vanished into one of his suit pockets.  

“Pleasure doing business with you, Feathers.  Don’t hesitate to ring again if you need anything else.  You have my number.”  And before Castiel can reply, with “It was no pleasure at all,” Crowley has disappeared in a curl of red smoke.

Castiel releases a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding.  He slouches out of his rigid angelic posture and when he does his whole body aches, his muscles screaming like he had been holding that posture for hours, not only the minutes he walked with Crowley.  Their arch banter, the effort of maintaining his stony face against Crowley's constant innuendo and insults, has taken too much from him in his weakened state, it seems.  

No matter.  He has endured much worse than aching muscles.  He rolls his neck, his shoulders, and turns to one of the blocky computers situated on vinyl-topped desks.  He has a new sub-objective:   _ research the powers of an angel’s halo _ .  He is glad that he will be able to perform his research on a computer, instead of by interrogating an evil, twisted library gnome and ordering it to scour the stacks for him, as had been his expectation.

He sits down.  The ache in his muscles throbs, exacerbated, he thinks, by the rigid, inorganically shaped, library chair.  He ignores the ache, and draws a keyboard toward himself.  [ _ Halo + Angelic]:Powers,  _ he types in the catalog interface, and clicks ‘Search’.  He wonders if Crowley made this same search, when he saw the halos on Dean’s night stand.  He wonders what Crowley found, what he is about to find.  The computer makes a whirring noise, like it hasn’t been used in a while and now thinks only rustily.  

It returns one entry.  A book called  _ The Fallen _ .  Castiel scans the listing, to start to figure out where to look for it in the stacks.  It’s very old, he sees, almost as old as systems of writing have existed.  His breath catches when he sees the Author field.  One name.   _ Lucifer. _

 

_ ***** _

 

The first chapter in  _ The Fallen _ , the longest, and the only one written with any decency whatsoever, is about Lucifer and Iblis.  After Iblis, or maybe  _ because  _ of Iblis and what happened to him, Lucifer didn’t have any decency left.

Lucifer took the angel Iblis as his lover when they arose together in Hell after the Fall.  Maybe Iblis loved Lucifer, or maybe worshipped him, or maybe only wanted to be close to his power in the new regime.  Lucifer does not speculate on Iblis’ motives, but his own motives are clear. Lucifer did not love Iblis.  Lucifer did not want his boon companionship through all the eons.  Lucifer did not even want his worship.  Lucifer only wanted to use him.  Not for pleasure.  For power.    

He would kiss Iblis’ olive skin with his grace, and hope that his lips would draw Iblis’ grace to meet him there, on the surface, so he could join it with his own.  It did not.  He would fuck Iblis, down in the dark depths, fuck him with his grace, fuck him deep and try to find Iblis’ grace far within, in his innermost, most intimate, core.  He could not find it, or coax it out, though he tried again and again.  After many attempts of this type, he became frustrated, and he bit at Iblis’ throat, and when Iblis’ claws scraped against Lucifer's face and he hissed “More,” Lucifer didn't hear him, because his attention was captured by the white hot grace streaming from the bite marks, shaded red by the taint of the Fall.

Lucifer lapped at the tears in Iblis’ skin, more gently than he had ever touched Iblis before, and power surged down his throat.  Iblis leaned in to him, leaned in to what he thought was Lucifer’s care, and threaded his hand into Lucifer’s hair, eyes closed, breathing deep.  

The hand laced into Lucifer’s hair became a claw, clutching, as Lucifer sucked Iblis dry.  And it clutched, and held on, until Lucifer drained the last drop of life from Iblis, and dropped Iblis’ withered corpse on the ashen ground of the depths.  It may lay there still, dried and forgotten.  Who knows; there are many depths, in Hell.

Nausea rises hot and bilefull through Castiel as he reads.  Because it was so cruel, to use Iblis like that, and because Iblis was Castiel’s brother even if he was Fallen, and Castiel didn't know that this ugliness was his fate.  But mostly, mostly, the nausea builds because he, Castiel, knows what it is to cut the throat of a brother, and lean in to steal his grace.  To suck him dry and leave him for dead, uncaring in the glut of new power.  

He hasn't eaten in three days.  Three days, while he counted Dean's name a million times in the bathtub.  So when he reads how Lucifer stole Iblis’ grace, and he  _ remembers _ what that feels like, and he vomits, he only brings up yellow bile, and his stomach grinds against itself.  It hurts.  His whole body, hurts.   _ Dean _ , he thinks.   _ Dean, it hurts _ .  

He does not take the time to pity or coddle himself.  He does not deserve it.  For empathizing with Lucifer?  No, he does not deserve comfort.  He wipes the bile from the corners of his mouth with the back of his hand, dries off the book with an edge of his blanket, and keeps reading.

Iblis’ destruction was one way that Lucifer empowered himself, after the Fall.  There were others, as he prepared, over the eons, for his battle with Michael.  The battle that he thought would end it all, and bring him final victory.  This is what he writes about, in  _ The Fallen _ .  His successes, his failures; it is part gloating testament to himself and his cleverness, and part laboratory notebook, reporting on terrible experiments.  While he wrote about Iblis with curiosity, with patience and even some care, his writing afterwards is devoid of all that.  It is distant, calculating, cruel.  It is deranged.  “ _ Ate Hamut and Gamut’s eyes, _ ” it might say, casually, in the voice of the Lucifer that Castiel has come to know.  “ _ It didn’t work.  Will eat their hearts next.  Maybe with some ketchup.  Heart is so chewy. _ ”

Castiel reads it all.  Every indignity inflicted on his brothers ( _ ate their eyes, ate their hearts; stole their grace with bites and cuts and angel blades; cut pieces from their souls, ate them, made jewelry from them, stretched them into clothes and wore them like a second skin) _ , every smug gloat scribbled after every success ( _ Disintegrated Jophiel’s body and breathed in the molecules.  Retained his grace.  Powered up, but not sure I even want it.  Jophiel is a stupid fucking name for a stupid fucking angel, and even his grace feels stupid) _ .  Castiel reads because he has to know, though his stomach twists and knots and heaves like he is rising and falling on an angry sea.  Castiel has to know what Crowley found out about the halos.  He has to learn how to use  _ Raphael _ to find Dean, if he can.  So he reads.   _ Dean _ , he thinks.   _ Dean _ , when his eyes brim with tears and it hurts and he wants to stop, and wonders why he is doing this at all, why he isn’t still wrapped up tight in his blanket in their bathtub, where it is safe, where he doesn't have to read about Lucifer cannibalizing his brothers.   _ Dean, _ under and beneath every word he reads, still impressed on every beat of his heart after the million, imprinted there now as a habit that is automatic and indelible.  

Castiel’s brow furrows as he reads, and he burrows deep into his blanket, hiding from what he sees, shivering and cold in the brutal air conditioning.  He holds Lucifer’s book down against the table so tight his fingers cramp, and he stares at the words so hard that his eyes start to throb; feel dry like they have been rubbed with sand.  He sits in his chair so still and so long that his body’s ache accentuates into sharp, stabbing pain that begs him for movement, begs him to rise.  His blood burns in his veins.  This burn is the oath, he knows, reminding him of his blood’s promise.  He is surprised; he thought it would hurt more than this, this long forcibly separated from Dean, with this little plan for reunion.  Maybe it just feels distant, compared to his Fall.  His blood burning him in one place, in one time, instead of the pain of all places and all times that was given to him by Heaven as his grace burned away.

He hurts but he does not move.  He reads.  He has to.  He has to know.  

He had no idea, how bad it got, after the Fall.  He knew that Lucifer was not a forgiving or generous leader, not kind or sympathetic, that he had been wrathful after the Fall.  Angry and hurt; twisted and prideful.  But, the pages Castiel turn reveal that he had treated the other Fallen like livestock, not followers, or worshippers.  His own brothers.  Lucifer had hurt and mutilated them in cruel and often pointless ways.  To try to find ways to use their grace, to make himself strong for battle, to raise himself up again, to make himself a new God, to fix the mistakes of his Father.  Castiel reads, and his nausea boils in his stomach, hot and acidic on the back of his tongue, making every swallow taste like bile, every breath burn sour.  

It only builds, his sickness, as he reads.  What he reads is ugly, yes, but that  is not why his body revolts against him.  It revolts because when he reads that Lucifer drank the grace of a brother straight from his throat and dropped him dead on the ground, a useless husk, Castiel  _ remembers _ doing the same. It revolts because Lucifer murdered his brothers with the weapons of Heaven, and so did Castiel.  It revolts because Lucifer stole souls to make himself stronger, godlike, and Castiel can  _ remember _ , what it felt like to be a stolen God.  Castiel’s body is in revolt against itself because Lucifer thought he could be a better God than their Father, and so Castiel thought, and maybe still does.  His stomach boils and his blood burns, and he twists his blanket tighter and shrinks in on himself, makes himself small, because he reads Lucifer's notes and they are unthinkable, blasphemous, abhorrent, and, even so, unbidden, mixed in with the horror, Castiel feels  _ empathy.   _ This is Lucifer’s book of tricks, his best and his most secret, and Castiel already knows them.  Knows them too well.

Castiel did not realize he had so much in common with Lucifer.  Or, he had not let himself realize, before now.  Both had been their Father’s favorites, both had rebelled.  Both had thought that their Father had failed, failed the world, and both thought that they could fix those failures.  Castiel reads what Lucifer has written, and he understands, he recognizes that need to be more powerful, stronger.  A need that in regrettable instances of his own past has made him willing to do  _ anything _ .  He has felt that need too many times, always leading him to disaster.  And now, he sees, that need has over and over again turned him towards Lucifer’s star.  He has not followed the star of the Christ, or of gentle Mary.  He has been as the worst of his brothers.   

He wretches again.

Because right now, even while he is reading, he is turning his face towards Lucifer's star once more, seeking it out to guide him in the cold, black, Pit.  Alone and desperate and afraid, he has sought out Lucifer’s advice, across death and the Cage and thousands of years.  Soon there will be another horrible chapter in this detestable book that Castiel will empathize with, too directly.  Because whatever Lucifer did to steal grace from his brothers’ halos, no matter what it is, no matter how it makes Castiel’s stomach turn, he already knows he’s going to do it.  Father help him, he's going to do it.

He’s going to do it for Dean.  He  _ has  _ to do it for Dean. He doesn’t have any other assets.  He doesn’t have any other allies.  His body hurts so much he can barely hold himself up, in his stiff plastic chair, and it will only get worse the longer they are apart; he cannot even count  _ time  _ as an asset.   But he  _ swore _ .  He swore to Dean,  _ Always, Anything _ .  And he meant it.  He meant  _ Anything _ , even if  _ Anything _ is making a deal with Crowley, even if it is turning again to Lucifer's traitor star.    _ Anything. _

He's going to use Raphael’s halo, and he's going to bring Dean back, and when he does, he will never call Crowley ‘Serpent’ again.  

_ I’m coming for you Dean.  Anything. _

 

*****

 

When Castiel finishes reading  _ The Fallen,  _ he walks out into the armory.  The ache in his body recedes a little when he stands, and he thinks it might not just be from unfolding from the hard chair but also because now he knows how he is going to get to Dean. This partially satisfies the blood oath burning in his veins.  His plan will bring Dean back to him, so he doesn’t have to hurt, that is the logic of the blood magic. Brutal and simple like a single cut through flesh, a single drop of blood in the fire.

_ The Fallen  _ has turned his mind to this way of thinking, of punishment and blood and rents in the skin.  It revealed many secrets, rituals and spellcraft that were lost to Heaven, many powers that Castiel wishes Crowley did not know about.  Its arcana bled into him, through his eyes, many secrets of Hell kept hidden that he wishes  _ he  _ did not even know about.  That he could have gone forever, without ever knowing.  One of these is how to use Raphael’s halo.  

With  _ Raphael, _ his eyes will flash with angel’s grace, again.  With  _ Raphael,  _ he will be powerful in battle, again.  He will be able to heal the sick and judge the unfaithful, burn the eyes from the impure.  He will have wings as wide as a dimension, and as heavy.  He will be strong and fast and hard and bright.  He will be able to be Dean’s angel, again.  Without Heaven pulling his strings.  He will be what Dean needs, what Dean deserves,  _ finally _ .  Not some pawn of Heaven.  Not this creature that can’t wear a shirt because it hurts too much.  Not this kitten that is always cold.  He will be a lion again, and he will roar, he will breathe fire.  With  _ Raphael _ , nothing will keep him from Dean.  Nothing.  Not now, not ever.  

Though there is a price.  He tries not think about it too hard, as he walks out into the armory.

He will be able to use any of the stolen armor and weapons of Heaven hoarded in the Pit.  He will be able to touch them without being burned, he will be able to wield them without being smote, and he will be able call on their abilities that draw from angel's grace--including their ability to pierce the veils between Hell and Earth and Heaven.  He will be able to go to Dean, anywhere.  Now.  Always.  His heart rejoices in this, the freedom, the certainty that his charge will be  _ safe,  _ that Castiel will keep him that way.  He rejoices even while his blood thumps heavily in his temples, pounding out a hard, even rhythm.  He thinks that if he were cut his blood would bleed darker now, for what he knows.  More like a demon, than an angel, or even a man.

All of Heaven's stolen artifacts are sequestered in one corner of the armory with a heavy golden gate around them, so that they will not burn or blind a demon who brushes against them or comes too close, unknowing.  Castiel makes for this corner, trying to decide which of the plundered items he will choose, from the great many that have been stolen by demons or abandoned by the Fallen.  Perhaps if there is the armor of a seraph’s class, his own former class, he will wear it.  Though  _ Raphael  _ was an archangel, perhaps a seraph’s armor will not be able to contain his powers.  Perhaps he will need to give up the comfort, the familiarity, of the seraph’s armor, in favor of heavier, stronger pieces.  Perhaps he should not wear armor at all, it has been so long and he is so weak, perhaps he should count on magic and grace to protect him.  Perhaps, perhaps.

He does not deliberate for long.  The choice is made for him, before he even reaches Heaven's corner.  There are no windows in the armory, it is lit by steady, magical, perfectly spherical orbs that float in alternating red-white-red-white along the walls and above the aisles and provide perfectly constant, unchanging light.  And in that constant, unnaturally steady light, one coat of armor  _ glints _ at him.  It glints gold, even in the flat white and red light.  Almost like it is  _ winking  _ at him.  

Winking a golden eye.    

He continues to approach, at first wary of some witchery, some trickery by Crowley ( _ I didn’t specify that there not be incapacitating spells on anything in the armory…) _ but then hope and ease smooth his face, and his brow unfurrows for the first moment since Dean vanished.  He recognizes this suit of armor, the one winking at him, and the sword gripped in its gauntlets, immediately.  He recognizes it by the golden lion, rampant, gilded into the chest.  He recognizes it by the pommel of the sword, a roaring lion with amber eyes.  He recognizes it by the cape, outrageously tacky for a battle garment, made of cloth of gold thickly and brazenly woven with equally bright threads of copper.  Like a gold and copper disco ball, made into a cape.  Almost too bright to look at; too heavy and too garish to be even remotely practical on the battlefield.   _ Gabriel.   _ This is Gabriel’s sword and armor.  Castiel didn't know that it had been captured.  It is hard, to take the armor of an archangel.  Even for Dean in his fury, as  _ Raphael  _ had shown.  Even armor as impractical as this.

It  _ winks  _ at him again, and as he watches the cape shimmers, turning from disco gold to deep, cobalt blue, starting at the shoulders and rippling down to the hem.   _ Thank you, brother,  _ he prays, certain now that Gabriel is with him, if still not wanting to appear and show his hand.  

_ Cape should always bring out your eyes, little bro,  _ he feels prayed back to him.   _ Especially when you're riding to the rescue.  Only reason to wear one. _

Now a small smile finds Castiel's lips, and this also is the first one to appear there since Dean's disappearance _.  Thank you brother,  _ he prays again.   _ I will keep that in mind.  _ Castiel has worn a cape to keep the rain off his armor on long marches, to keep his vessel warm when taking a cold night's watch, to use as a pillow, instead of a rock when that was the only other option.  He doubts that Gabriel has ever done any of these things.  He smiles again, just imagining it:  Gabriel trying to make a bed from his ridiculous disco cape, under a wagon in the rain.  

Gabriel always could make him smile.  Even in a time like this.

 _There's my baby bro,_ Castiel feels.   _I like that cape.  Try not to let Dean-o_ _ruin it when he tears it off you._

Castiel blushes, despite himself--the guard that held his face in a stony mask for Crowley completely dropped for Gabriel--but quickly steels his expression.   _ Gabriel, brother, can you help-- _

_ No can do little bro.  I've helped too much already:  nudging Sam to call you, dropping my armor here and fixing it up so it will match the corsage you bought Dean for the prom, keeping you from keeling over from your fakakta blood oath while you read Luci’s whole rat fuck crazy book _ .   _ I'm gonna have to mosey on off to another plane of existence for a while, to cover my trail. _

_ You… You've been here his whole time?   _ Castiel knew it.  He knew Sam's call wasn't a coincidence.  Crowley was wrong.  

_ I've been reading over your shoulder for the last 10 hours, bro.   _ Castiel hadn't realized it had been that long.  No wonder he ached.  No wonder his eyes felt dry.

_ Man, is Luci a giant bag of festering dicks, or what?  _ Gabriel continues. _  I don't even have the words.  I hadn't read that shit before but, woah, that is some Shirley Maclane level crazy.  Fuck that guy. _

Castiel shrinks in on himself.   _ I'm trying…   _ He doesn’t know how to continue this, is hesitant.

Gabriel senses it.   _ Yeah?  Spit it out, Cassie.   _

_ I'm trying to have more empathy for our brother.  In light of my own… misdeeds, it now seems hypocritical for me to declaim him. _

_ ‘The fuck? ‘Misdeeds?’ ‘Declaim’?  Did you just read the same book I did?   _

_ Surely you noticed the… similarities between some of Lucifer’s methods and my own… recent history.   _

_? _

Castiel exhales heavily.   _ Lucifer *failed* to become God.  I… I… _

_ Castiel.  Cas.Tee.Ell.  You canNOT be comparing yourself to Lucifer.   _

_ I suppose not.  Since I was better at murdering our brothers and taking what should be reserved for our Father than he ever was.   _ His thoughts are dark, bitter.  Like hot coffee grounds, they steam.   _ I have *surpassed* Lucifer.  Who am I to fault him, then?   _

_ Oh my Dad.  Oh my Dad, Cas.  When you swore that stupid-as-shit blood oath to the flying squirrel, did it come with a fucking personality transplant?  Has he been giving you *lessons* in how to Hate Yourself and Not Influence Others?  Not that you really need lessons, you’ve always been pretty good at that, but, FUCK.   _

_ Did *YOU* just read the same book *I* did? _

Castiel gets the sense of Gabriel sadly shaking his head.   _Bro, you’re not even in the same *league* of weasel dicking as Luci.  That guy… man fuck that guy.  He never had a decent bone his body, or a decent thought in his cracked head.  And you… you… you think I would help you, if I thought you were like that?  Didn’t that fucking dick pox Naomi, don’t get me started on her, didn’t she try to re-program you, because you *cared* too much?  Didn’t you rebel, because you were in love?  In LOVE?  You just read his very special secret diary, Cas, and tell me this: do you think Lucifer was ever in love with any_ **one** _but himself and any_ **thing** _but, I dunno, the complete genocide of the human race?_

Castiel remains silent, his face stony.  It’s true that he did rebel for love, there is no denying it, the whole Host and all of Hell know it.  And his love for Dean… it takes up his whole heart.  It takes up all the space that was left by the songs of the Host.  It is golden and warm and it shines so bright.  Sometimes he even thinks he sees it, flickering in the shadows of the Pit, surrounding him in little golden sparks just ever in the corners of his eyes,  He doesn’t think Lucifer ever felt that, not even a little bit of it.  Not after the Fall, at least.  

And it’s true that he never tried to commit genocide… but that is a low bar.  A very low bar, indeed.  Maybe… maybe this is why he likes the Pit, so much more than he ever liked Heaven.  Why he likes the shadows and the heat so much more than he ever liked the light and the cool, crisp air.  Maybe this is where he belongs.  

_ Gabriel.   _ He finally thinks, sadly.   _ How do you think my soul would be compared to Lucifer’s, if our Father were to judge us? _  Would his love matter?  His love for Dean, his love for humanity?  Would it make a difference?   _ Should _ it, if his sins are the same?

He wishes his Father were here, to tell him.  But he’s not.  Chuck is gone, and Lucifer is vanquished, and it is only Castiel, small and hurting in the Pit, needing Dean.  Loving him more than anything, having to do his best.

_ Cas,   _ Gabriel is giving off a vibe that says he 100% cannot believe he is even hearing this shit.   _ You’re Chuck’s fucking favorite and you know it.  Why do you think you’re even ALIVE?  How many times has he duct taped your busted ass back together?  Do you think he does that for everyone?  I'll give you the answer:  no, no he does not.  Sure as shit didn't do it for poor, disintegrated Jophiel.  You're his FAVORITE.  I don't know how you can literally be the Lord Dad's favorite of all his angels and still doubt yourself this much, but it's got “your boyfriend's self esteem issues are contagious” written all over it. _

Now it is Castiel’s turn to shake his head, sadly.   _ Lucifer was his favorite too, before the Fall. _

Gabriel seems to sigh heavily.   _ Maybe that’s why he keeps bringing you back. _

_? _

_ Maybe you are the balance.  Maybe old Dad is glad that one of his kids has the stones to play Lucifer at his own game. Maybe that’s  _ **_why_ ** _ you’re his favorite.   _

_?   _ Gabriel is not making sense.  Why would the Father want  _ anyone  _ to act like Lucifer?  Besides,  _ Michael... _

Gabriel loses his cool.   _ Michael!?  That asshole?  Cas, Cas, you've got to be  _ **_kidding_ ** _ me.  Michael might as well have been made of hair gel, for all he cared about anything else and for all the good he ever did in his entire sorry existence.  He and Luci  _ **_deserve_ ** _ each other.  Don't even talk to me about Michael, he's not even in the fucking equation. Didn't we just establish that the standard we are setting here, impossibly low though it may fucking be, is  _ **_not_ ** _ trying to bring about the genocide of the human race?   _ Pause.   _ Don't answer that.   _ Pause.   _ Fucking FUCK, our fucking family, Jesus. _

Gabriel sighs again, trying to retain composure.   Castiel allows him the moment, not sure  whether he is allowed to answer yet or not.   He thinks that if Gabriel were here, he’d be holding his head in his hands, disgusted by their family, or waving them, frustrated that Castiel is not understanding him.  

After a long pause, Gabriel continues.   _ Lucifer, he’s an evil motherfucker and no denying it, Dad must have dropped him on his head when he was born, because fuck.  He’s the one that’s always trying to fuck things up, he’s the one that is full of all kinds of gross shit like for example, Hamut and Gamut’s eyes, but mostly he’s full of even less productive shit, like jealousy, and hate for everyone and everything besides his smarmy ass self .  And--and Dad help me it makes me want to vomit out my own intestines to say this--but maybe you are the one who balances him out, because you’re all full of gooey, squirrel-flavored love.  Maybe there has to be someone who can stick his hand in evil’s chest and rip its heart out, but still be full of love afterwards.   _

_ I.. Gabriel… _

_ That’s always been my theory, anyway.   _

_ You had a ‘theory’?   _ Gabriel has never spent much of his time on his knees in incense smoked septs thinking about theological questions.  He likes playing poker better.  He likes almost everything else better.   

_ Well, I clearly should have been Dad’s favorite, drove me nuts, I had to come up with some reason.   _

Castiel smiles bigger at this.   _ You’re the only one of the archangels that isn’t imprisoned or dead, that’s gotta count for something.   _

_ That’s what I’ll tell myself during my next exile, while I’m hiding out in some shit dimension where they don’t even have wax lips.   _

The mood, lightened for just a second, droops down and flattens out at this.  Gabriel has put himself in danger, to help Castiel, to make him smile.  Castiel wishes it didn’t have to be that way.  

_ Gabriel--    _

_ Don’t want to talk about it, bro.  I knew what I was getting into.  And I think we’ve already had enough of a heart to heart today to last us through my exile, don’t you?   _

_ Gabriel -- _

Gabriel brushes him off again.   _ Talk to your boyfriend about it, if you feel guilty.  When you get him back.   _ He doesn’t wait for a reply to this, he just changes the subject, conversation closed.   _ So you’re going to use Raph’s halo?  You’re going to… do that?   _

_ Yes. _

_ Dean won’t like it.  He wouldn’t want you to. _

_ I know.  It doesn’t matter.  I have to go to him.  I HAVE to.  I SWORE.   _

_  Just… just don’t be so hard on yourself, OK little bro?  Think about what I said.  I’m not gonna be able to talk to you for awhile, after this, and I don’t want to have to worry about you moping around over here when you should be tearing shit up with your new mojo and getting laid like crazy.  You’re not Lucifer.  You’re Castiel.  You’re boring as fuck, have been for a million years, you wear a trenchcoat, and my moose boyfriend’s big brother has the hots for you.  That’s who you are. _

Castiel smiles again, even bigger than before.

_ I love you, too, Gabriel.  Go with Our Father.  Go far from here.  Be safe. _

The suit of armor winks at him again, and he knows that Gabriel is gone.  Castiel misses him, immediately, even if he was never actually physically present in the armory.  For a moment, he had an ally.  More than that, for a moment he had a friend.  A brother.

Now he is alone again.

He sighs, and pulls back his blankets and sweater to reveal Raphael’s halo, locked onto his wrist.  Time is wasting.

_ I’m coming for you, Dean,  _ he thinks.  As soon as he can.   _ I know how, now.    _

 

*****

 

The ritual to use the halo is simple.  It’s not  _ easy _ , but it’s simple.  The halo retains as much of the angel’s grace as the angel had when it died.  To get to the grace, the halo accepts a simple trade.  A soul, for the grace in the halo.  Just a soul, simple, singular, nothing more.  Lucifer would trade his soul for more grace without a second’s thought; his soul meant nothing to him.  For  _ him _ , it  _ was _ easy.  He would trade his soul casually, almost disdainfully, and stuff himself with the grace of the strongest of his Fallen brothers.  He would use their stolen grace, he would use it all up, fighting the old ones, traveling far, breaking bonds and wards that should not have been breakable, casting spellwork that no one else would ever be able to break.  And then, when there was only a thread left, a tiny glimmer, a single static shock where once there was lightning, he would trade that back for his soul, leaving the halos spent, powerless, all used up.

And that’s how it works.  Simple, but not easy.  A soul for a finite, one-time-use punchcard of grace.  At least a sliver of grace returned before it’s all used up, to pry the soul back out.  

This is what Castiel is about to do.  This is what Dean won’t like, that Cas is going to give up his soul, though Cas will argue with him (and tells himself) that he is not much at risk of failing to get it back, trading for an archangel’s grace: an archangel has a lot of juice, especially when it dies in Heaven in the middle of a battle, like Raphael did.  It's not likely that Castiel will use it all up before he is able to get his soul back, Raphael had a lot of power, it would take a long time to use up, even if he were trying to use it up, and he's not going to try.  

It’s not  _ much _ of a risk, but it’s still  _ a _ risk, because if some shred of the original grace isn’t returned to the halo, there is nothing else it will accept in trade.  And then… then the grace is gone, and the soul is trapped in a hunk of metal.  And can’t be released.  Castiel gulps, thinking about it, thinking about how he will explain it to Dean.  Hoping he won’t have to.  Because if he runs out of grace, uses it all up before he gets his soul back, his soul will be trapped in a hunk of metal, forever, and he will be dead.  And Dean, forlorn, will wear him around his wrist, alongside Castiel's own halo; Castiel's grace and Castiel's soul, together, forever, so close but still unjoinable.

But Castiel won’t run out of grace.  That won't happen, Castiel won't let it.  He will be careful.  He will use as little as possible.  He needs grace to heal himself so he is strong enough to fight; he needs it to pierce the veils, to break through the wards around the bunker.  There is no other way he can do any of that.  But he doesn’t  _ need _ it to free Dean, to distract Sam, to fight him if he has to.  Or he probably doesn’t.  Gabriel’s sword is still a sword, without grace, it can pierce skin, cut ropes, bash in locks, break chains, and Castiel is still a swordsman.  An  _ excellent _ swordsman.  Heal, travel, break through wards.  That is all he will use the grace for.  It will hardly even be a noticeable fraction of Raphael’s grace.  Not even a drop in the ocean.  

And Castiel... he doesn’t need to  _ use _ grace to  _ threaten  _ to use it _.   _ There are a lot of demons in Hell that could be  _ threatened  _ by an angel’s grace.  Threatened to do almost anything.  Definitely threatened to run rampant through the Men of Letters bunker and distract Sam Winchester, while Castiel and Dean effect an escape.  

Grace cannot make the demons his  _ allies _ , in fact using it to threaten them will make them hate him more than they already do.  But it  _ can _ turn them in to  _ assets _ .  Assets who are afraid.  Assets who will obey him, even if they spit and curse his name.

Standing still in front of Gabriel’s armor, Castiel takes a deep breath.  He’s stalling.  Casting forward grim shadows of the future, analyzing what does not need to be analyzed.  His course is set, his decision made.  He should proceed.  Without Gabriel’s intervention, his blood is starting to burn him again, worse than before, and, he realizes, the oath must be burning Dean too, must have been burning him this whole time.  Dean has been in pain, Castiel has been  _ failing _ him, this whole time, weeping and crying and cringeing when Dean was  _ hurting _ without him.  It’s not right, it’s not right, and Castiel has to fix it.  Go to him.  Go to him as soon as he can, as fast as he can.  He has to make it right.  He can’t let Dean think, for a second, that Castiel forgot him.  That Castiel abandoned him.  That Castiel wouldn’t come for him, no matter where he was, no matter how far away, no matter what the cost.  No matter how weak he was, how alone, how afraid.  

He has to hold Dean to his body, again.  He has to hold him for a long time, and not let him go, until their blood stops burning and their hearts thaw out.  He has to heal Dean’s wounds, if he has any, and tell him that he loves him.  Over and over, he has to whisper it against Dean’s skin with soft lips, words that are also kisses.

He loses himself for a minute, imagining this, imagining how he will kiss Dean and say “I love you,” how Dean’s body will blush underneath him and how Dean will close his eyes but wrap his arms around Castiel tight.  How strong Dean’s hands will be, on the small of his back, on his shoulders; his the skin of his fingertips will be rough.  How Castiel will finally be  _ warm  _ again _.   _ How Dean might say “Need you, Cas.  Stay with me,” in a voice that roughs and cracks and pierces Castiel’s heart.  How Cas  _ will _ stay, and kiss Dean until time slows down and stops.  “I will stay with you Dean.  Always.  I promise.  I promise,” he will whisper, in Dean's ear, over his lips, into his skin.  He whispers it now, to himself, in the huge, empty armory.  Whispers quietly, though there is no one around to hear.  “I will stay with you Dean.  Always.  I promise.” The promise surges and burns, within him.

It is hard not to lose his determination to move forward to dwelling in the scene he imagines:  softly lit, Dean naked beneath him in their bed, wings open wide so Castiel can touch them, tell them he loves them, too.  Their bed is so soft, and Dean looks so beautiful spread out on it.  His skin is so warm.  In the vision, he breathes out, “Castiel.” He breathes it out a hundred times, on a hundred breaths, as Castiel kisses his body, and every time it sounds so astonished, so awestruck, so profound.  And every time Castiel answers:  “Yours”, “Always”, “Anything”, “Forever”, and kisses Dean again.  He will cover Dean with kisses, he will kiss Dean's body until his mouth is numb and then he will continue on, pressing numb, open lips to Dean's skin until his mouth is dry as desert grass, and then he will continue on, until his arms are too weak to hold him over Dean's body anymore, and he will melt down, into Dean, and their two bodies will become one, and they will sleep, finally, again, sleep peaceful, easy sleep, together, where they only dream about a cloudless sky and lilacs on an open field and fingers laced lightly together.  

He’s stalling again, lost in this soft, warm, daydream.  He re-focuses, and, determined, he examines the weapons that are available to him in Heaven’s corner to conduct the ritual of trade with Raphael’s halo.  He selects one with little consideration:  a long, thin, knife from the table nearest Gabriel’s armor, silver, set with spiraling scrollwork that reminds him of the clouds.  He sets down his iron poker, and picks the knife up.  It tingles in his hand when he lifts it.   _ Anael’s _ , he recognizes.  

He takes a deep breath.  The ritual is simple.  Not easy, but simple. He cuts a thin line on the top of his left hand, just under where  _ Raphael _ hangs, heavy and cool on his wrist.  He whispers the words in Latin, he offers his soul.  He hopes he won’t regret it.  

He thought that maybe next his soul would leak out of the shallow cut and seep into the halo, like the smoke of a candle into a vent.  He thought he would watch it, and feel himself die for a moment when his soul was all gone, feel himself come back to life, a thousand times brighter, when the grace crashed in to him.

That’s not what happens.  If Crowley left any of his creatures, witches or hellhounds or other, spying on Castiel in the armory, they are dead now.  Because a flash of holy light explodes off of Castiel’s wrist, where Raphael’s halo sits, so bright that it seems like it should sear shadows permanently into the walls.  So bright it would blind Castiel, if it didn’t also invade his eyes and change them, make them more and better than they ever had been before.  So bright it would burn him, if it didn't soak into his skin and make it enduring and hard like platinum.

He doesn’t feel himself die. He feels his life multiply by a thousand, a million, a number so large his mind wouldn't have even been able to contain it, a moment ago.  He becomes infinite again, un-stuck in time, now everywhere and always instead of limited to this one moment in this one place.  His mind extends in every direction, forward and backward in time and into dimensions he had almost forgotten.  His true form spirals out, tiny stars racing out into un-knowable vastness, no longer limited to the extent of his body.

His breath catches sharply, ragged on the inhale, and he tips over forward, choking on the fiery ice that fills him to overflowing in a single, immediate, burst.  A hand goes to his heart, which has not stopped beating like the dead, but is instead crescendoing like the roll of a tympani, so fast he can barely tell one beat from the next, so deep it feels like it is driving through his body and into the floor, the walls, and shaking them, too.

This is not like being an angel again.  This is like being an angel that has snorted all the cocaine in the all world and followed it up with strapping himself to the fastest satellite flying the highest over the Earth and then setting his face on fire.  This is what it feels like to be able to do _anything_.  He throws his blanket from him, he does not need it, he is _bursting_ with light and heat.  His blood still burns, but his corporeal body is such a small, insignificant part of him, that he barely even notices it anymore.  The grace inside him is all he can feel, it’s everything, and it feels too big, too powerful, too _much_ for this vessel.  He has to concentrate on just trying to breathe, breathe and hold himself together in one piece and not shatter into a thousand.  Grace is flaring blue from his fingers like ten lasers, and he thinks it is probably burning out of his eyes, too, like they are tiny stars, gone nova.  He can see _everything_ with his new eyes, every fingerprint on every weapon, every stir of air, every molecule of dust.  He has to slam them closed, to block out the overload of sensation.  As he does, wings break free from his back, break into this dimension with a rush that knocks over cups and crowns in the armory with metallic clatters, and he staggers further with their weight.  They are bigger, stronger, heavier, than his seraph’s wings were, and where his own wings were black these are light and tawny, feathers long and tipped with gold.  Archangel's wings.  He is afraid to flex them because he is afraid that if he does he will fly so far he will be lost and not be able to find his way back.  Instead, he bows, face near to the ground, under their weight.

He gasps breath after breath, hand clutched over his heart, and just tries to hold very, very still.  Until his heart slows down.  Until he can fold his wings back and away.  Until he can open his eyes and focus on each of his fingers one by one, and stop it from glowing.  Until his eyes are still like stars, but little stars that are far away, that only twinkle, instead of burn, and the overwhelmed tears breaking over his eyelids and washing over his cheeks have stopped their steady flow.  Then he holds still some more, completely still, for a count of one hundred.  Trying to just control himself enough that, when he straightens back up, he doesn’t destroy every artifact in the armory with a sweep of his wings or melt all the precious metals with the heat of his gaze.  

He has to control Raphael’s grace, he  _ has to _ .  Because if he can’t, there is too much risk of running out, and he has to trade the halo back for his soul right now, put his dim, scared, small soul right back inside himself, and find some other way to Dean.  If he can't control it, he can't use it at all.  He has to control this rushing waterfall, hold it in, release it only in the smallest of doses with the most deliberate of care, because if he doesn’t, he might use it all up, every drop, until there is nothing left and he is lost.

He would use it all, until the river ran dry and he was nothing but dust, for Dean.  For Dean.  Building palaces for Dean, forging him weapons and armor made with gold and jewels and wildfire, running fingers of lightning over his soul until he screams and screams and screams and forgets every word but ‘Castiel’; emptying out oceans and forests and snow covered defiles to make room for humans and demons and old gods and new to gather and fall to their knees and worship Dean, and spill their tears in despair at his beauty.  

He is imagining it, how high he would raise Dean, how he would be so beautiful it would make the whole world suffer, for not being near him.  He is imagining it, lightning cracking above Dean's head as he sits a high throne, eyes black and wearing a silver crown, so beautiful that it is unbearable to look at him.  Castiel beside him, always, golden wings spread wide in warning.  He can  _ taste  _ the lightning.

He is spinning, in the storm.  It doesn’t feel, right now, like he could ever run out of this screaming, soaring, power.  It feels endless.  It is an ocean and he looks out over its roiling waves, and even with his new eyes he cannot see the other shore.  But it’s not endless, he knows, the other shore is there, steep and sharp like the edge of the world, and if he reaches it the drop to the shallows will kill him, leave him broken and split open on black rocks.  

This feeling, that he could do  _ anything _ , is so, so dangerous.  He has to treat it that way.  Not like it is a lottery ticket that has given him everything he ever wanted.  He has to treat it like a dangerous poison, a parasite that has infected his mind and might drown him in the waves, hold him under and claim him if he forgets it's there for even one second.

He will  _ not _ forget.  He will  _ not.   _ He will be the calm inside the storm.  He will use the power, only for the most dire necessity, only as he sees fit.   _ It  _ will not use  _ him.   _ He is Castiel.  He is the shield of God.  He is sworn to Dean Winchester, forever.  He remembers.  He remembers!

He straightens from his bow slowly, carefully.  One centimeter at a time, eyes narrowed to slits, hands pressed palms down to his sides so no grace can slip out.  He is in control.  He will stay in control.

Then he looks at Gabriel’s armor, just looks at it, and only begins to think that he should put it on, and it is on him.  Fitting itself to his body, perfectly.

He grits his teeth and fists his hands.  He didn’t mean for that to happen.  He didn’t need or intend to use grace, for that, he could have put the armor on with his hands.  But before he even  _ thought it _ , thought of reaching out his hand to take the right gauntlet down off the armor stand, there it was, the whole suit on him, sword in his hand.  And it hardly took  _ anything _ , the sea of Raphael’s grace boils on, undisturbed as if one molecule of water has evaporated in the heat of the Pit.  That is how little it cost.  It was so  _ easy _ ,  _ too  _ easy.  

There is so much he could do, with this ocean, for Dean, for the world…

No.  He has to control it better, he  _ has to _ .  He has been down that path before, with the souls from Purgatory.  He will not make those mistakes again.

The armor seems to help.  It seems to hold the grace in, a better container than the skin of his vessel.  Grace burns and batters at it from the inside, but it holds strong, glowing a soft blue instead of exploding, like almost anything else would, when attacked by this power.  

Standing straight backed, pain of his oath receded to a distant burn, armor fitted and sword in hand, Castiel wants to go straight to Dean, to cradle Dean's head in his hands and heal his wounds and kiss his lips and whisper his promises and fulfill his oath  _ right now. _  His wings flex, and space in the armory warps and wends, folding the shape of the universe to bring Castiel and Dean closer together.  The promise screams within him:  ‘ _ Yes _ ,’ ecstatic, ‘ _ Yes _ ’.

_ No,  _ Castiel screams back.   _ No.   _ He's not ready.  He wants Dean, safe, back in his arms, more than anything, more than this power, more than anything it could bring him.  But he's not ready.  His primary objective, yes, is to  _ find Dean, and go to him,  _ but he now has two new sub -objectives.  One:  use as little grace as possible.  And, two:  don't hurt Sam.  

These two are not entirely independent.  In the state he is in now, unable to control Raphael’s grace, resentful of Sam for taking Dean away and refusing to give him back, though Castiel pled with him, if Castiel fights Sam, Sam will not survive.  Dean would not forgive that, no matter how Sam has hurt him, by keeping him from Castiel.   _ Castiel  _ would not forgive that, of himself, if he were the one, after all these years, after so many fights with so many evils, to finally put Sam down.

He can't fight Sam, but he can't ignore him either; Sam is too canny, too careful, too  _ dangerous _ to just ignore in making his rescue plan.  Sam could stop him.  He will not be stopped.  Sam could trap him, keep him from Dean.  He will  _ not  _ be kept from Dean.

He needs a distraction, for Sam.  One that doesn't cost grace.  

He needs to claim the new assets that grace can bring him.  

He needs demons.

He takes a step, one step, towards the exit from the armory, to find them and bring them to heel.  To dominate and command them and use them as his tools.

His armored foot cracks the floor.  It sinks in a whole inch, like Castiel is walking on muddy soil, instead of hard, smooth, black marble.  

He grits his teeth again.  He has to do better, to control this power.  Already, he doesn't want to give it up, it is to exhilarating, but to keep it means  _ control.   _

He could fix the crack in the floor with another molecule from the sea of grace, but he doesn’t.  That would be a waste, that is not necessary.  So he leaves the pothole behind and takes another step, trying to be feather-light, trying to walk across water.  This step barely breaks the floor, a hairline crack, hardly noticeable, probably  _ not  _ noticeable to any ears but Castiel’s, that heard the sound, any eyes but Castiel’s, that can see the micron-thin fissure.  

His third step does not crack the floor.  On his fourth step he paces so lightly that his grace carries him, and he floats.  Too light.  Fifth, a step, sixth, floating, seventh, a step.  By ten he is able to walk, careful as a ninjitsu in stealth, one step after another, steps that do not break the floor beneath him or lift him into the air.  Steps that carry him to the exit from the armory, and the demons beyond it, who will soon be his unwilling assets.  

_ I’m coming for you, Dean _ .   _ Don't fear, your time of suffering will soon be over. _ _ I can’t be stopped now.  Father help me, I cannot be stopped _ .    

 

*****

 

Before Castiel came for Dean, the first time, during the Siege, he studied the layout of the Pit carefully on maps drawn with intelligence gathered at great cost in lives of younger angels.  He studied them so carefully, so seriously, while Balthazar pouted and slouched, while Hannah read their orders over and over, while Raphael meditated to prepare his healing energy for battle, while Zachariah smirked and made insincere reassurances. Castiel studied, he studied so hard.  He was diligence, and dedication; he was the angel of devotion.  He was going to be the one, to bear this glory for Heaven.  He was.  And he did.  He was the one who was bright with glory when the choir of the Host sang out, “Dean Winchester is saved.”      

So, though he has spent his time in Hell since his Fall entirely in his room, with Dean, recovering, he knows that directly outside and adjacent to the armory and the library is the throne room: these are large, major, landmarks in the Pit’s layout.  He knows that with the Master present in the Pit, demons might congregate in the throne room, to wait for orders, or ask for judgement-- Castiel's garrison had fallen on them there, where they waited to serve Alastair; taken them all in one show of force to thin the demon ranks at the very start of their assault.  

He is not sure what to expect in the throne room, now, with Dean gone and no successor named or apparent.  Will it be empty, with no one sitting on the throne to petition?  Or will demons still gather there, to stare at each other with yellow eyes, and red, and black, stare at each other and try to assert dominance?  Will they be drawn in to the power vacuum?  Will they inch, carefully and slowly, towards the throne?  Claim territory, supremacy, by their proximity to it?  Be the first to gain it, if the Master should fall, fail to return?  When Castiel throws open the door from the armory, will he see emptiness, or assets?

He braces himself at the exit from the armory, takes a deep breath, makes his spine stand tall, makes his wings straight and taller.  He lets his grace shine around him, he lets it make his armor and eyes and sword shine bright.  His entrance will not be subtle, or stealthy.  Those he sees will know he is an angel.  They will know what his coming means.  Danger.  Death.  Violence.  This is what he will bring, to the Pit.  He exhales, and opens the door.

The throne room is not empty.  Demons are there, clumps of them gathered like tumors, horrid in their seeping, wretched, true forms.  He can see them, see them too well with his new eyes.  He sees the taint that surrounds them, he sees the violence and hatred in their hearts, how they are full of it, how it clouds around them like flies around a corpse.  He sees how they hate the throne and how it subjugates them, but how at the same time they covet it, and want to be the subjugators.  He has the eyes of an archangel, eyes that see  _ everything,  _ without and within, eyes that pierce to the places they cannot look.  Eyes that are given to the judgement of the Father.  It is his, to see their secret hearts and know them and judge them.  It is his, to be the final justice and final judgement of the Father.

He sees.  He sees that every demon in this chamber is making designs of one form or another on Dean's throne:  assassinations, deals with Crowley, spellwork to break the mandate, threats against Castiel, or Sam, for blackmail.  He sees the demons, all evil, all abominations, all wishing that Dean not come back, all wishing that  _ harm come to Dean  _ as clearly as they stand and breathe.  

_ Unacceptable,  _ Castiel seethes.  _  Anathema.   _ These are an offense to the Father.  These are an offense to purity, and holiness.  These cannot be allowed to endure.  

Before he even realizes it is happening, a wild concussion of electric grace explodes from his body and eradicates every demon in the room, leaving them nothing but a few dozen sad, smoking, piles of black ash.   _ Yes _ , his grace sings within him.   _ Yes, this is how it should be. _

It only sings for a moment.  Then, Castiel’s mouth falls open.  He did not mean to do that.  He didn’t even imagine it.  He only saw these demons, scheming, wretched, and hated them, and then they were ashes, on the floor.  His hand tightens and loosens around the hilt of Gabriel’s sword, scabbarded at his hip.  This cost a tall glass of grace, from the ocean, to destroy all of these demons.  Some of them were ancient, and strong and were not easily obliterated.  Sing though his grace might, rightness in the universe this might bring to balance, Castiel doesn’t want these destroyed. He wants them  _ afraid of him _ .  These piles of ash do not help him accomplish his objectives.  If anything, they are counter-productive, as if word of this massacre spreads in the Pit, the other demons will hide from him, run from him, be harder to gather to his flag.  So he grinds his teeth again, and fists his hands again, and swears again to do better at controlling Raphael’s grace.  And then he dips another glass, even taller, almost a pitcher, into the sea, and with what he withdraws he stops time, rewinds it 30 seconds, watches the explosion implode into him in reverse, watches the demons re-materialize from ash into their true forms again.

He releases time, and lets it stream forward once more. Demons are not infinite beings, like angels, these don't exist now both as ash and not-ash, both possibilities, as an angel would, but they can tell that the time stream has been manipulated.  Their murmur of conversation, harsh and sharp, rises in volume as they look around, to try to understand what has happened, each wondering whether, perhaps, one of the others has made a more aggressive play for the throne that threatens their own posturing.  

They do not wonder for long.  All questions on forked tongues are answered, as Castiel advances towards the throne, steady and undeniable, his mailed boots striking metallic and on the marble floor.  One by one, as he advances, misshapen heads turn, to fixate him with spiteful eyes, to see what angel dares to walk alone into the center of Hell.  

It is Castiel, and he is not afraid. He has walked here before, and he has conquered.

Seeing him, aflame with Heaven's grace, the demons know immediately that  _ he _ is the problem with the timeline.  The angel, the hateful one, the one who holds the Master in the palm of his hand,  _ he _ has done something, they can tell, that endangers them, and their schemes.  They hiss at him and point, marking him to their neighbors.  Some lick their lips and draw weapons.  Some back away, and flee.

The ones that draw weapons are foolish, arrogant, too stupid or cocksure to know what danger walks towards them, shining and holy but seeming very delicate, very careful.  He is too beautiful, they think, his steps are too precise; here is a crystal in a plane of dark marble and they will shatter him.

The ones that flee are wise.  These ones know what archangel's grace means.  These ones see Castiel's dainty steps, but they also see his eyes.  They see the wrath there, the ferocity.  They run.  They know that any demon should run, from the threat in those eyes.  Sam Winchester would run, if he saw it, now.

The throne room is large, and full of demons, and each of them sees Castiel’s slow march and makes a decision, some cowardly or wise, some brave, or foolish.  The most brazen of the foolish is Hydra.  There he stands, one foot audaciously rested on the dias that raises Dean's throne above the floor of the chamber.  That foot, scaled and rotten, and signing his death warrant.  Staking claim to what only belongs to Dean.  Calling Castiel's attention to him.  Hydra is already dead.  Twice dead, counting Castiel's first, accidental, obliteration.  Twice dead, and he doesn't even know it.

Hydra's arrogance holds nine other water demons to him, in his thrall: Naga, Scylla, Laocoon, and six others so low that Castiel doesn't even recognize them.  These lesser shift, and shuffle, and hang their heads as Castiel approaches their group at the base of Dean’s throne, but Hydra does not.  Hydra is still, his back is straight and tall, and he looks Castiel in the eyes.  Hydra withdraws a knife, shark's tooth, from a hilt at his waist.

So foolish.

Castiel releases the strangle hold he has on Raphael’s grace by the smallest possible degree.  His right hand, gauntleted, un-fists a tiny fraction, un-noticeable, most likely, to Hydra's bulging, black, demon-fish eyes.   

Hydra screams, and is blinded in a flash of light.  Scylla, Naga, and Laocoon, who were only looking at Hydra--not looking at the floor like the other, nameless, demons--also scream, as blisters erupt on their faces, and they are burned.  All of the other foolish demons not thralled to Hydra, those that did not flee in the initial wave, run from the throne room now, claws clicking over marble like a swarm of giant cockroaches fleeing from a kitchen when the light is turned on.  Hydra’s cabal is alone in the great, echoing, chamber, now, with Castiel.     

Castiel looks on them with narrowed eyes.  These will do.  They only have to make noise, crash through the bunker like elephants, break things, take up space.  They only have to provide a distraction.  They don’t have to be wise or strong or ancient or influential in the Pit.  They only have to be cannon fodder, for Sam Winchester to fight, and destroy, so his attention is not turned to Castiel, to Dean’s escape.  Castiel’s needs for this gambit ask little enough of his instruments; they can be met by the arrogant and the stupid.  His needs only require bodies, to be met with Sam's horn handled knife.  Bodies to form a wall of rotten flesh between Sam and Castiel’s escape route.    

Castiel nods his head fractionally, to himself.  These demons are stupid, they are too arrogant by far.  Even so, these demons will do.  These will be his instruments, on Earth.

He does not want to be interrupted, while he explains their mission and informs them of his expectations of their conduct, in the bunker.  He does not want them to be able to flee him, like the others did, what will come to them if they do not give him their obedience.  He cannot guarantee either of these wants here, so he uses another drop of grace to hollow out a ten by ten, doorless, windowless, cube of marble deep within the cavernous walls of the throne room.  This will be his classroom.  This will be where he teaches them.  Lessons that they cannot escape from, lessons that they cannot ignore.

“Come,” He says to Hydra’s cabal, eyes wrathful and hard, and he folds space around himself and his new assets, so that they arrive inside his place of preparation without ever moving.

_ Come,  _ he thinks,  _ and serve the Master. _

 

*****

 

The water demons exhale as one when they find themselves suddenly in a confining prison of black marble; as they look around in panic and see that there are no doors, no windows, no exits.  Only smooth, featureless, marble, lit by the fire of Castiel’s grace.  They hiss in pain as one, when they press their backs to the walls and find that no matter how they press and turn away, they are still too close to Castiel in this small space, too close to the fire of his grace. It burns them like the sun on pale skin, and they can only endure it.  

Castiel watches them, with pitiless eyes.  When he thinks they are ready to listen to him, he fists his right hand, tight as he can, and withdraws his grace to be only a corona that surrounds his armor.  In the center of the room, where all the demons can see him, he raises the marble around his feet a meter higher than the floor they stand on.  Now they are beneath him, and he can look down on them, with terrible eyes.

They shudder and try to back away, again, as one.  They fail, again, as one.  There are no doors.  There are no windows.  There is only Castiel, above them, beautiful and on fire.

He begins.

“You stood, reeking, on the dias, in the Pit, Hydra, though you know the throne does not belong to you.  Did you stand there because you wanted to be the first, to offer your service to the Master?  Did you offer him… These ones--” Castiel gestures with disgust at Hydra's followers, “as a sign of your fealty?”

Hydra's eyes are still smoking faintly, but he orients blindly to Castiel's voice and hisses at him through teeth sharp as knives.  His voice is high and chalky.  “Fuck yourself, angel, fuck yourself on --”

Castiel interrupts him.  “I accept the service you have offered, on the Master’s behalf.  I accept the service you pledged him, when you stood watch upon his throne in his time of absence.”

“I offered no service!  I should rule, in the Pit, not that human traitor!  Fuck the Mast--”

He does not finish saying it.  Castiel looks at him, just looks at him, and opens his eyes a fraction wider, and every bone in Hydra's face shatters, and every muscle in his face tears.  Hydra does not need the bones in his face, to execute Castiel's will.  Hydra does not need to talk, to execute Castiel's will.  But Hydra will show respect to the Master.  He will  _ learn,  _ to show respect to the Master.  Castiel will teach him.  This is the place of teaching, and this is the time.

“Hhnnngggg” Hydra groans, trying not to choke on his useless, broken, tongue while he cries out from the agony of his ruptured face, puffy and bruise-colored already.

There are no doors.  There are no windows.  The other demons press themselves harder backwards against the walls.

“I accept your service,” Castiel says again, quietly.  “I accept the service of these of your brothers that you offered to the Master.” The other demons all hang their heads.  They are not as strong, or as arrogant, as Hydra.  They will submit, before they lose their eyes, and their tongues.  They have already submitted, in their hearts.  Castiel can see it.  His lips curl in disgust.  So weak, these creatures.  So faithless.  These would not have lasted 30 years, on the rack.  These would not have lasted 30 days.

They have submitted.  Now they will know his rule.  He speaks.  “The Master is held against his will in a prison on Earth.  He is held by Sam Winchester.”

The demons mumble, “hunter,” and “boy king,” and “Lightbringer.”

“I will free the Master.  You will distract Sam Winchester while I do so.”

“He’ll kill us,” Naga whines, immediately, words propelled by fear and coming before he can think to stop them.  His serpent familiars coil anxiously in his hair.  “He is the Prince of Light, even now.  We won’t survive if you set us against him.”

“There are ten of you, and one of him,” Castiel replies, though he knows it's true:  none of them will survive.  These are not a match for Sam.   _ Weak.  Faithless. _

The snakes on Naga's head hiss.  Naga replies.  “The boy king will cut our hearts out.” The weaker ones nod, hopefully, thinking maybe Castiel can be convinced not to send them to their deaths.  As if he cares about their rotten hearts.

_ This one is smarter than Hydra,  _ Castiel thinks. “Yes, he will.  He will cut them out.” The weak ones look up at him now, hope rising in their eyes because they think Castiel understands, has seen reason, will spare them.  

“If you refuse this mission, I will leave you your hearts.” Hope is transmuting to relief on the faces in his audience.  They relax forward, not pressing up against the walls so tightly, anymore.  For a moment.

“I will leave you your hearts to pump your blood and keep you alive, forever, while I take your skin, and your eyes, and your tongues, and your hands.  I will leave you your hearts and there you will be, forgotten, left where I will set you in the plane of fire, burning, skinless, mute, blind, forever.  But I will leave you your hearts.”

Eyes that shined with faint hope before this final pronouncement all drop back down to the floor like they are weighted with lead.  One of the nameless demons whines wordlessly, and slumps to his knees against the wall.  

“I will free the Master,” Castiel continues, as if this exchange with Naga didn't even happen, as if he didn't just promise these subjects of Hell an eternity, flain, in the plane of fire.  “And you will distract Sam Winchester while I do so.  You will crush and destroy, scream and curse my name in your heartless language and break everything you see.  You are too cowardly to fight Sam Winchester, this you have already made clear, but you are not too cowardly to run from him.  Run far and fast, and take him with you.  Keep him away from me.  That is your mission. Destroy.  Run.  Survive if you can.”

“He will kill us all,” Naga whispers again, horrified.  

“He will kill you quickly,” Castiel corrects.  Naga's snakes coil down small and scared against his scalp.

“We could take his brother,” wheezes Scylla, entering the conversation for the first time.  “We could take his brother, then he would let us go.  His brother is his weakness.  His only weakness.  That is what is whispered, from the Cage.”

Castiel's eyes narrow.  Scylla has visited Lucifer and Michael in the cage?  Scylla has sought a reckoning of Sam Winchester's weaknesses?  Has he asked, too, about Dean's?  This is treachery, it is the poison of Lucifer’s influence in the Pit, and it should not have give un-noticed.  He will investigate it, further, when he returns.  He will investigate what information leaves the Cage, and what enters it, and by what means.  He will take remedial measures, if they are needed.  He will.    

But now, his lips flatten in an angry line.  He doesn't care whether the demons live or die; whether Sam kills them or banishes them, chops them into parts for spellwork or lets them survive.  But he does care how they interact with Dean, if they should find him in the bunker before Castiel does. It is unlikely that they could kill him, but they could cause him pain.   _ Unacceptable.   _ And Dean is in enough pain already, separated from Castiel.   _ I will bring an end to your pain, Dean, I swear it.  And  _ **_these_ ** _ will not be the cause of one second of it.   _

“You do not harm the Master.  You do not touch him.  You do not  _ look  _ at him.”

Foolish Hydra has had time to accept the pain of the mutilation of his face, now, time to think about how diminished he will be in his cabal’s eyes if he does not save face against the angel.  “There are ten of us and only one of  _ you _ ,” he hisses, turning Castiel's own words of minutes ago against him, eyes still oriented to Castiel's voice.  “What if we grab your boyfriend and slit his throat and fuck him on our knives, until you release us from our mission and send us back?  What if he cries out for you, so pretty, ‘Angel, Angel,’ to beg you to let us go so we will stop hurting him?  What if I gag him with my tongue, when he opens his mouth to cry for you?” Hydra leers.  It is a gruesome sight, his face bulging with bruises and all his bones misaligned and his blind eyes not quite meeting Castiel's.

The other demons flinch back into the hard walls, expecting violence.  But Castiel only tilts his head and narrows his eyes at Hydra.  “Do you know how I killed you the first time?” He asks.  

It is a confusing question.  Killed?  But Hydra is alive.  First time?  Only Dean Winchester can be killed more than once.  The angel speaks in riddles, and Hydra is far too stupid to answer.  His fish mouth hangs pale and open, and Castiel continues into his dumb silence.

“I stopped time, and I assaulted you with grace until you were nothing but ash.” The other demons shuffle and whine--  they realize that this means they were ash, too, probably, in the kink in the time line.

Castiel steps down from his ledge, and advances on Hydra.  Hydra cannot see him, but he can feel his presence, the heat of his grace.  Hydra shies away but he cannot shy far; there are no doors, there are no windows.  There is only Castiel, in his space, angered, and deadly.  

Castiel reaches out and caresses Hydra’s broken jaw with one armored hand.  The touch looks so gentle, but it grinds bone against bone and Hydra can barely stand, weak from the pain.  Castiel's iron grip on his face is all that holds him upright.

“What is the worst thing that has ever happened to you, I wonder?” he asks, his thumb tender, on Hydra’s cheek, but pulling torn muscles apart, Hydra shivering in pain.  “The worst thing you have seen, or done, or had done to you, in all your years in Hell?  Is it terrible?  Is it unspeakable? Does it bring tears to your black eyes when you remember it, in the night?”  Castiel’s glowing eyes pierce deep into Hydra’s blank, glassy, fish-ones, blindly aimed not quite at Castiel's face.  Castiel looks hard, as if he were trying to look through Hydra's eyes and see his fear.  

“What if I brought that memory forward until it was so large in your mind that it forced out all the others?  Until it was the only one you had left?”  Two of Castiel's fingers trace up Hydra’s cheek, until they rest on his trembling forehead.  “What if I made it so real that it was all around you, hot and smoking, in your eyes, in your mouth, on your skin, screaming in your ears?”  His two fingers tap, once, on Hydra’s face, and Hydra winces, almost falls backwards.  “What if I stopped time for you, and left you there forever in that memory, and forgot you ever even existed?  Now you tell me ‘ _ What if _ ?’”  

Hydra drops his blind gaze to the ground.  He's crying when he speaks, voice cracking around the swollen sounds of his broken tongue.  “We do not harm the Master.  We do not touch him.”  He says it so quietly, but everyone in the room hears, over the silence of held breaths and stillness.

Castiel backhands Hydra with his mailed fist.  The bones in his face turn to splinters under its force.  

Jaw clenched tight, Castiel instructs, “You do not even  _ look _ at him.”

“We do not even look at him,” Hydra whispers, head tilted back, eyes blind, face bleeding heavily where Castiel’s mail pierced one of his bruises.  “We do not even look at him, Lord, we do not even look at him.  He keeps repeating this over and over, through his pain, like a charm.  “We do not even look at him.”

Castiel raises one eyebrow and looks out at the rest of the demons, eyes glowing.  They are huddled together, some in pairs, holding hands, and as Castiel's gaze finds each of them they take up chanting along with Hydra.  “We do not harm the Master.  We do not touch him,  we do not even look at him, Lord.”

Castiel climbs back up on his ledge and draws Gabriel’s sword.  These demons are broken.  He has broken them.  He takes no pleasure in it; they were not great adversaries.  It was easy.   _ Weak.  Foolish.  Faithless.   _ But now, they are his assets.  They will obey his commands.  They will save Dean from Sam, and save Castiel from himself, and storm of power that calls his name.  

_ I’m coming for you, Dean.  Soon. _

 

*****

 

Castiel holds aloft a fiery sword.  Archangel's grace surrounds him, so powerful that it burns through reality and blurs the air with a shimmering blue light.  It reflects off Gabriel’s plate mail and makes it gleam.  His eyes flash.  The demons surrounding him cry and gnash their teeth and stomp their feet, and stare at the ground, afraid, anxious, wanting action, wanting to create chaos and destruction and do Castiel’s will so that they can be free of Castiel's regard.  Ready to be dead under Sam Winchester’s blade rather than alive and faced with Castiel’s disappointed attention.  They press against each other, against the walls, as far from Castiel as they can get, burned by grace he cannot control, grace that seeps off him like fog off a mountain.  But there are no doors, there are no windows, and they cannot be free of him.  Castiel fists a gauntleted hand, and his grace pulses, and the demons shriek, as one.  

When his grace withdraws and they quiet, only shuffling, not shrieking, he asks softly, so softly they have to strain to hear, “Who do you serve?”

“Castiel,” some scream, though his name, too, burns them.  Less than his grace, it burns them, and so they scream it out.  “The angel,” shout others, Naga among them, slightly wiser.  Their voices are like steel screeching on steel.  

Castiel dips his head, one fraction of a degree, one hint of a negating, disappointed twist.  He fists his hand again, tighter, this time.  Another pulse of grace flares, brighter than the last, and demons shriek again.  Scylla hits the ground.  Laocoon clutches clawed hands over his eyes.  They are smoking, burnt away.

Again Castiel speaks, this time his voice barely more than breath.  “Who do you serve?” He holds his hand up, palm open, a threat.

“The Master,” the demons cry, desperate, acid tears bubbling on their scabbed faces as they weep their obedience. “The Master, Lord, please, let us serve him.”

“You will serve him.” Castiel says, voice cold and very tight.  “You will serve him well.”

He wields Gabriel’s sword in a deliberate pattern of strokes, writing in the air with fire.  The sword cuts through the warp of space.  A dark portal opens in front of Castiel, and from the other side he hears Sam Winchester shouting “NO!”

“SERVE HIM NOW,” Castiel commands the terrified demon cabal, his grace pulsing again, burning them.  They stampede through the chasm, desperate to obey him, desperate to escape.  Like a hive of bees that has been tipped over, they swarm. Through the chasm.  Into the Men of Letters bunker.

Castiel follows, sword raised, eyes burning, cape flowing out behind him, plate boots polished to a gleaming shine, breaking the floor where he steps over it again.  

_ I'm coming for you, Dean.  Now. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Loooonnggg chapter with too much plot and not enough porn, but, shucks, I LOVE BAMF!Cas. I love sweet, innocent, Cas, the Cas that Dean held and kissed and whispered "I need you," to, but man do I also love it when he raises that dom!eyebrow and BAMFs out. I guess that's part of what is so amazing, for me, about Castiel's character, that he has both of those aspects. 
> 
> <3 <3 <3
> 
> On Tumblr, I am brainheartpizza (https://www.tumblr.com/blog/brainheartpizza). I post unedited excerpts between AO3 updates!


	11. Red and Gold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is Hell. This is what happens to hearts, in Hell.

_I used to be lunatic_  
_from the gracious days_  
_I used to be woebegone_  
_and so restless nights_  
_My aching heart would bleed_ _  
for you to see_

_Oh, but now…_

\--No more ‘I love you’s’, Annie Lenox

 

\---Present---

The sun has set on the cliff's edge.  Night insects buzz and chatter in the darkness, and the moon shines down, silver and gracious, on Dean and Castiel.  They lay still in the moss, naked and pale, covered by Dean's heavy wing, and Dean runs his fingers through Castiel's hair, soft and black in the night.  It is getting cold.

“We have to go back,” Dean sighs, now for the third time.  “It's been so long, days in the Pit. Sam’s gonna be pissed.”

“We have to go back,” Castiel agrees, solemnly.  “But we will always be here, Dean.  This was… I will carry this in my heart forever.” Castiel’s eyes are deep and blue, steady in Dean's, and he strokes gentle fingers of one hand over Dean's cheek, while his other hand traces lightly over his own heart, igniting tiny sparks that still remember Dean's touch.

“Yeah,” Dean says.  “Yeah, me too.” He drops his gaze. “And I think… I don't think it will ever be as dark for me as it used to be.  Anymore.  Because you showed me my heart.  Thank you, Cas.  Thank you.”

“Dean,” Castiel takes Dean's face in two hands and kisses his forehead. “Dean.  Will you let me stay with you, forever?” It is all he wants.

“I swore it.”

“Then we can go back.  Because I will stay by your side and keep you, my charge, my heart, come what may.”

 “OK, Cas. OK.” Dean takes Castiel’s hand in his own and shakes out his wings.  “Don't let go.”

 

*****

 

Dean returns them to Castiel's weapons cache.  It is still a wreckage.  The water that Dean spilled has cooled, and come to rest in shallow puddles.  The copper basin that held the sweet, scented, water, is bent in half on the floor.  Splinters litter the edges of the room, where Dean broke his armor stand and tossed the ruined remnants aside.  Tables are turned over, and Castiel's knives, every one of them, are fallen in a clutter on the floor.  

Dean hangs his head, taking in the destruction.  It is stark, it strikes him, compared to the clean, swift nature of the cliff.  “Sorry, Cas,” he says sadly.  “Mark got to me.  I shouldn't have… I should have controlled it better.  Sorry.” He sounds ashamed.  He feels ashamed, through the bond, like he is thinking about rocks, sinking into deep, lightless pools.  He stands still with his head bowed, body held ready for punishment, like he is waiting for a blow.

The blow never comes.  Castiel raises Dean's head up, to face him, with gentle hands. Dean's eyes are a little afraid.  Even after what he and Cas have just shared, he carries this fear, this fear that he will always be hurt and abandoned.  On the cliff's edge, with his hand in Castiel's soul, that seemed impossible, unimaginable. Soul, blood, body, they were bound with unbreakable golden chains and their hearts beat as one, and summoned the sun.  But now… Now they are in the Pit of Hell.  Now all around them is the evidence that Dean is not strong enough to fight the Mark.  Now their eyes fall everywhere on the ways that Dean has ruined Castiel's secret place.  Castiel almost never allows anyone else entry here, but Dean.  And Dean destroyed it.  Of course he did.  That is why his eyes are afraid.  Afraid that Castiel will turn away from him.  Afraid that Castiel should.

Castiel can feel it, through the bond.  The fear, oozing black and cold through the hot shame.  Castiel squeezes Dean's hand.  He will clean away that fear, black and oily, throughout the eons, until there is nothing left.  He thinks it is a little less now, than it was before the cliff, a little melted by the sun they called together.

“I forgive you, Dean.  I love you.” His eyes are still and calm on Dean's, certain, as always, as he says it. 

Dean crumples slightly, body drawn in on itself, head bowing again.  Because he doesn't think he deserves forgiveness, Cas knows.  Because, too, he is relieved and grateful and awed at the size of Castiel's heart, because he knows Cas means it, has truly given his forgiveness.  Because he knows that, though he will never understand why, though he will never deserve it, Castiel will forgive him anything.

He raises their joined hands to his lips and kisses Castiel's knuckles, softly.  “Cas… I… I.  Thank you.” He presses another kiss to Castiel's forehead,  “I'll fix it up for you, promise.” He will.  He will turn a new armor stand on the lathe himself.  He will travel to Earth, search places that have never been searched, to find a new knife, one sharp and beautiful and precious as Castiel.  He will hang it proudly on the wall, where it will shine.  He will summon greedy Balaam from his palace in Hell and order him to lay Castiel's name down, in gold, wide and proud on the floor.  

He releases Castiel's hand, so he can take him in his arms. “I'll make it right, angel,” he whispers in Cas’ ear, pleading.  “I'll make it right for you, again.”

Cas holds him back.  Of course he does.   _Of course._ “I know Dean.  I forgive you.  I love you.  You saw…” He can't put into words, what Dean saw, when he held Castiel's soul in his hand.  “You saw.”

“Yeah, Cas.  Yeah, Yeah I did.” Tears threaten the rims of Dean's eyes.  It was so beautiful.  Castiel, swirling around him.

He holds Cas close.  He buries his face in Castiel's neck, and he inhales the scent of water, and night air, and he remembers, what he saw.  He remembers, when there was no fear, no shame, only silver stars spinning around an emerald heart.  

He doesn't want to let go.  He doesn't want this moment they have shared to end.  How can he?  How can he let this go, and send sweet Castiel, his angel, to break that cultist in the plane of fire?  How can he let this go, this safety and ease,m to face a blood cult that worships his name while they slit their own throats and pray to die?  How can he?  How could anybody?

He kisses Castiel’s face, soft kisses that begin to linger.  One hand claws in Castiel’s hair, holding his face tight.  One hand slips beneath the band of Castiel’s jeans, holds his ass, brings his body close.  One leg wraps around one of Castiel’s legs.  Every movement of his body brings Castiel closer, closer.  

“How do I do this, Cas?” He asks, whispering, breathless, between kisses.  “How do I let you go?”  He kisses Castiel’s neck softly.

“Don’t.”  Castiel worms closer, too.  What they have shared… it feels like a betrayal, now, to be apart.  One inch, it feels too far.  He takes a pinch of the skin on Dean’s neck in his teeth, and holds it there.  “Don’t, ever.”

“But we have to go back, we have to--”

Castiel silences him with a kiss, that is long and hungry.  A kiss that makes them both close their eyes, and sink closer together.  Lips are wet and tongues strong, and insistent.  Tongues and lips and hands that know each other, so well, and still want more.  Need more.  Dean whines, so softly, in the back of his throat.   _Cas,_ he thinks, _Cas.  Don't leave me._

“There is something I want,” Castiel says, when he breaks away, breathless, hands trembling on Dean's back, and looks up, to find Dean's gaze.  There is something.  Something he has thought of with longing, many times.  Something he thinks can help, now, when they cannot let go of each other.  

“Anything.”  No hesitation.  Absolute.

Cas bites his lip, thoughtful as he begins to ask:  “I know you can’t wear my Name, the way I wear yours-”

“Cas--”

“Because you wear Cain’s Mark, and its wants for you and my own are often not the same.  Carrying my Name could tear you apart, the way Sam’s could have done to me.  But…” he pauses, to inhale, and worry his lip.

“Go on, Cas.  Anything.”  Dean means it.  Cas knows he does.  He’s felt it.  

“What if you didn’t have,’Castiel, Seraph of the Lord, Angel of Thursday.’  What if you only had ‘Cas.’”  He blushes, just a tiny tint of red on the tips of his cheeks.  “That name belongs to you, anyway.”  

“Cas,” Dean says, both in reply and as if he is tasting it on his lips, imagining it on his skin.  

“It wouldn’t be as powerful as my real name but maybe… maybe it would let you feel me, a little bit, all the time.  Maybe then it wouldn’t be so cold, when we have to part.”  

“Cas.”  Dean says again, more certain.  His hand stretches out, and the First Blade appears.  He holds it hilt first towards Castiel.  “Anything.”  

Castiel shakes his head, and does not take the knife.  “I want to talk to Sekhmet first. I want to be sure of what will happen with the Mark, if we do this.  I won’t hurt you Dean.  I won’t risk hurting you. I would hold you and stay in your orbit, forever, never leaving, to keep you warm, before I would risk hurting you.”

“Sekhmet is a demon, Cas,” Dean says, as if this should obviously disqualify her from any and all conversation for all time, regardless of the import of this decision.  “She hates my ass, and her fucking sisters tried to slice my fucking skin off, and I’m sure she fucking laughed the whole time when they told her about it.  And she doesn’t like you any better.  Don’t tell me she doesn’t eye you every time she sees you, sizing you up, trying to figure out if she could beat you in a knife fight.”  

“That’s not her fault; every time I see her I am also sizing her up, trying to figure out if I could best _her_ in a knife fight.”  

“Not convincing me, Cas.  If you’re not sure you can beat her, you sure as shit don’t need to show up at her doorstep asking for a favor.”  Dean’s face becomes pained.  “What if she doesn’t like it?  She could hurt you.”  He pulls Castiel’s waist closer in to his embrace.

“Sekhmet knows more about tattoos than anyone else in the Pit, probably anyone else anywhere.  I could spend a month in the library researching what will happen to you if I tattoo ‘Cas’ on you with my blood,” Dean’s mouth parts slightly on an inhale, thinking about this, “and still not get anywhere.  During that time, we will be parted, and I will not be able to… work with the cult leader.  And I still might not find a definitive answer.  Sam and I did not, when we researched his attempt to mark you.  I know what is available in the library, it will not tell me this answer.  But Sekhmet will _know_.  She has peerless mastery of that magic.”

“Say she does know, what makes you think she’ll tell _you_ ?  She hates your ass, too.  One, you’re an angel, and B, she thinks maybe you _could_ beat her in a knife fight, and she does _not_ like that.”  

“She does not like me but… we have an agreement.  She will tell me.”  

“Does your agreement involve knife fighting?”  

“Regrettably, no, it does not.”  

“ _Regrettably_?”  Dean is aghast.  

“There is no one else in the Pit who can match me in a knife fight, Dean, sparring grows tiresome.”

Dean presses his lips, thinking about that.  Thinking about Cas’ bare chest glinting with sweat as he twists and thrusts, spins and ducks and strikes.  Maybe he should spar with Cas sometimes.  “Cas, I could -”

Castiel raises a hand and forestalls him.  This is an unnecessary tangent.  “I will go see Sekhmet.  She will tell me whether it is safe for me to tattoo you.”  Dean opens his mouth, but Castiel knows what he is going to say.   “I will not engage her in a knife fight, no matter how much she provokes me.”

“Ok Cas.  Ok.  I’ll… I’ll go see Sam.  Do some damage control, there.”

“That is probably wise, Dean.”  

Neither Dean nor Castiel step back, or even move.  Dean’s hands are still clutching Castiel close, Dean’s leg is still wrapped around Castiel.  They gaze into each other's eyes.  Even with this plan, sensible and possibly palliative for their reluctance to part one another, they still find it hard to step back.  There is longing, in their gaze, longing for each other even when they are so close; longing to be able to stay this close forever and never part, longing to be even closer, again.  

“I love you, Dean.”

“I know, Cas.  I--” His tongue stumbles on the words.  “Be fast.  Find me again.”  And then Dean does step back, and flex his wings once, and then he is gone, unable to bear dragging their parting out any further, afraid that his resolve will not last if he looks any longer into Castiel's eyes.

 

*****

 

Castiel stands still in the ruined cache, head hanging low, for a long moment after Dean leaves.  He is cold again, in a way he has not been since the Fall, and he wraps his arms around his bare chest.  His skin calls out for Dean.  His blood burns, too.  He does not want to be parted.  He _needs_ .  He wants to go to Dean, follow him to Sam's cell, pull him into the circle of his arms again and kiss him again, longer, harder, and bury his head in the skin of his neck, where it is warm and smells like _Dean,_ again _._ He wants this like an angel wants to hear the voice of the Father and like a demon wants hellfire and black smoke, though they have only been separated a moment.

It is good that he has a concrete plan of action to pursue, or he probably would follow Dean.  He might not have been able to let him go, in the first place.  

His skin still sparks with tiny lightning that strikes under his heart, where Dean reached into him, and spreads out into the rest of his body following the network of his veins.  And he wants.  He wants Dean inside of him, again.  But he also wants his name, _Cas_ , the name that belongs to Dean and no one else, tattooed on Dean’s skin in his blood.  He wants to be able to touch Dean’s skin and let Dean feel what he is feeling.  He wants that so much, to melt and thaw the fear that freezes Dean’s heart.  He wants everyone, all of Hell, all of Heaven, all of Earth, to know that Dean belongs to him, just as they now know that he belongs to Dean.  

He wants these things enough to transport himself to Sekhmet’s door, instead of Sam’s cell.  

Hell is a place, a distinct place in space and time, and it is populated with millions of souls, some demon, some Fallen, some on the racks for punishment.  Like any other place of that size, it has an economy, where goods and services can be traded.  

Sekhmet provides a service.  She is a tattooist.  But to say only that she is a tattooist is to do a disservice to her true skill, and mastery.  She is exceptional with knives, with edged weapons of all forms.  When she tattoos, she uses needles, and blades, and ink, and the old ways.  She has a gift that allows her to see within.  She can see what a penitent wants more clearly than they can, and when she sets it on their skin her precision, her mastery, creates perfection.  Her work is not comparable to that of the mutilators in the demon pens who scrape pentagrams and inverted crosses on the flesh of their customers and leave them infected and seeping.  She exceeds those by so far that what she does should not even be referred to with the same word.  This is the service she provides, in the Pit.  She creates art, alive on flesh.  

As her art is so elevated beyond that of the mutilators in the hovels, so is her price.  She does not barter for hammered coins of gold, the currency that some of the demons carry.  She does not make deals, like Crowley and his sycophants.  No.  The price of a tattoo from Sekhmet is a secret.  

Dean was right to say that she does not like Castiel.  She does not, despite Castiel’s equally correct statement that they have an agreement.  She and Castiel are not friends.  She does not like it that an angel walks among them, and stands so close to the Master.  She does not like knowing that he may come to her burning with archangel’s grace some day, and bend her to his own will, or the Master’s, as he did Hydra and his followers.  She is a storm of steel, fast and deadly, and it has been a long time since anyone has bent her to any purpose but her own.  When Castiel comes to her without his red-gold halo and gold-tipped wings, she _might_ be able to take his eye, with her dagger.  She _might,_ she still has not decided, hard and close though she has watched his movements every time she has seen him.  But though she might be able to best him, and though she wants badly to find out she does not attempt it.  Not because she fears the Master’s reprisals:  he would only kill her, and she does not fear death.  No.  When Castiel  comes to her, she does not attack.  She smiles.  Because the angel… the angel has the _best_ secrets.  

Sekhmet does not live in the hovels, in the fires and the the filth with the other demons.  Her art and her majesty and her secrets set her apart, above.  She has a cave, smooth and high-ceilinged and spacious, far beyond the farthest edge of the racks. This is where Castiel sends himself.  Not inside.  He does not enter without her permission.  No one does.  

There is a chime hanging over the entrance, and when Castiel arrives he reaches his arm up and runs his fingers along it to announce his presence, letting the sound and vibration of the chimes join in with the faint lightning on his skin.  He raises up, on the balls of his bare feet.

There is no immediate answer to his ringing, so he waits.  He knows she will give him what he wants, he is confident in their arrangement.  He has a good secret, for her.  He has many, actually, though he will only share one, if he can manage it.  As he waits, he thinks about what it would be like, to fight her, his body making small moves, progressing through the dance.  He has seen her fight, before, long ago, on Earth.  He has seen her chew through groups of enemies that thought, wrongly, they had her outnumbered, finally.  He has seen blood spin around her like the funnel of a tornado.  

His eyes are closed and his body is twisting in the shadow of a spin when he hears her voice, rough and smooth like sand in honey, call out:  “Enter.”

He pulls back the curtain that hangs over the entrance, and sees that Sekhmet’s back is turned, to the door, to him.  She dwells in the Pit, but she is not afraid of what may come to her door.  He shuffles forward, making just a little too much noise, stepping just a little too unsmoothly.  He doubts she is fooled by this ruse.  It is simple, childish.  And she has seen _him_ fight, too, on old Earth, during the plagues, though only with a sword. She knows his feet move more carefully, than this, she knows he is more graceful.  He maintains the poor subterfuge, anyway.  

“Highness,” she greets him, as she is bound, though on her tongue this title sounds like a great condescension.  She does not turn around.  A snake, bright green with yellow eyes, forked tongue out and hissing, sits coiled at her right hand.  It stares at Castiel.  He wonders if she can see through its eyes.

“Lionness,” he greets her in reply, as she was called on earth in her time.

She raises her head from her desk, where she was writing, and sniffs the air.  “You have… been with the Master,“ she says.  She sniffs again, and her shoulders go stiff.  “You have… No.  You didn't,” she says, voice shaded with disbelief.  Curious, she turns around, spinning easily on her stool.  She stares at him, face smooth and assessing, brow furrowed as her eyes flick from the tattoo on his neck --which he did not have, when last they met-- to his heart, precisely the place Dean touched him, and back.  Her eyes are golden, citrine, and slit pupilled, like a cat’s.  The slits widen, as she continues to stare at him.  “You _did,_ “ she corrects herself, shaking her head smally, perhaps in private awe of what she sees as his deep foolishness.

“I did,” he confirms.  He's not sure if she means the tattoo of Dean’s Name, or the touch on his soul, or even just the sex, and he's not sure how she can sense any of those on him anyway, but whatever she means, she is right.  With Dean, _he did._

He has a purpose here.   _“_ I have a secret for you,” he begins.  “About the Master.  Not even his brother knows.”

Her eyes narrow.  “And what do you want in exchange?” Secrets about the Master are valuable, in the Pit.

“Your advice.”

“What advice?”  She asks, face scowling around her narrowed eyes, suspicious.  She knows Castiel is ancient.  She knows he can freely access Hell’s library.  There is little enough she can tell him that he does not already know or cannot find out through less hostile means.  The library, she has heard, even has air conditioning.

Castiel feigns nonchalance.  He steps further into her antechamber and eyes a golden figurine of a naked woman, teeth bared, covered in blood of rubies.  He does not pick it up, but he looks at its eyes, garnets, instead of Sekhmet’s.

“I am going to tattoo my Name on the Master.  I am going to tattoo it there in blood.”

She barks out a contemptful laugh.  “If you want to kill him, _Highness_.  The Mark of Cain will turn his brain into a sponge of blood before it will share him, with you.”  Her gaze turns inward.  “It’s got its claws dug into him now, and it’s not going to let him go.”

“I agree.” He looks up from the statue, and meets her gaze directly.

She regards him coolly.  “I see.”  So he is not completely a fool about this, as he is about so much having to do with the Master.  Good.  She can advise him, if he is willing to be reasonable, if lust has left room for thoughts in his head.  “So?” she picks up a small knife, silver, double-edged, the length of her palm, from her desk, and starts flipping it.  She fumbles it, once.  On purpose, Castiel is sure.

“So I’m not going to give him my real Name.  Only the name that belongs to him.  Only ‘Cas.’  Just enough so that he can feel me.  Not enough for me to control him.  Not enough to challenge the Mark.”  

Sekhmet nods, bites her lower lip in thought, hums.  The hand not flipping the knife stretches out to scratch her snake’s head; her nails are long and lacquered gold and the snake leans in to their reach.  “Hmmmmm.”  

“This is the advice I seek.  Will this work as I hope?  Or will any name be too dangerous, with the Mark?  Or will the opposite be true:  will such a small part of my name have no effect on him at all, and be only decorative.”

“I will give you this advice, Highness.  You know the price.”  Her snake hisses loudly at him.  He pretends a flinch.  Sekhmet smiles at him knowingly, eyes sparkling.  As he thought, then, she is not fooled by his affectations of awkwardness.

And he does know the price.  A secret.  He will just tell her.  The secret is worth the price he asks, he knows, and he knows she will deal fairly with him.  Because she is fair, not because she is afraid of him.  Again, he wonders whether she should be.  

“Let me tell you a secret, Lionness,” He begins, formally.  She nods at him to continue.  Her eyes are serious, now, her face a smooth, attentive mask, her lip almost curled up in a smile.  “The Master was injured.  A cult lured him to their circle by calling his name in a Lucifer ritual, over and over until he became annoyed with them and ventured out to teach them better.  I did not accompany him.”  Bitterness slips into his formal, un-emotional voice when he reveals this.  “When he arrived, he was surprised, and stabbed.  They did not molest him further, once his blood was shed; they killed themselves, and touched him, and worshiped his name, instead, presumably to finish the ritual they truly intended.”

Sekhmet is nodding, through this, tapping her long fingernails against her desk to the cadence of Castiel's speech.  She does not interrupt.

“He brought me their leader, he is waiting in the plane of fire for me to return, and teach him.” He pauses.  “No one else knows.  He may tell his brother, but he has not yet.  This is my secret.”

Sekhmet closes her eyes and smiles, tasting this secret on her tongue.  The angel has the _best_ secrets.  This one is bloody, it tastes like copper, it lets her savor the Master’s blood, spilled, a hurt that surely healed before anyone else got to see it.  This one is sweet, the Master was lured, he was injured, he does not know all, he does not see all.  He is not the perfect warrior that the rest of the Pit believes him to be.  This one fills her heart:  the Master is weak, he is human, he probably felt bad watching the other humans kill themselves and pray his name.  This one is dangerous:  who might these cultists be, who might be behind them, to find a way to hurt the Master?  Mmmmmm.  

Her eyes are smiling when she asks Castiel:  “The Master was stabbed?”

Castiel nods, jaw clenched, fists tight.  Any other would pay, dearly, for smiling about that, in Castiel's presence.  But he has promised Dean that he would not let Sekhmet provoke him into a knife fight, and so he will not.

“And the others killed themselves?”

He nods again.

“Did they use knives, too?”

“They did.”

A proud, fierce smile breaks on her face.  “My children.”  She looks down at her snake and smiles at it.  It looks back and retracts its tongue, and it seems that it is smiling too.  Castiel is not sure of the provenance of the snake; if it is another demon, or a human familiar, or even just a well-trained snake.  He does not want to waste a secret to find out.  He will stay out of the range of its fangs.   

When Sekhmet looks away from her snake, her face has composed itself, it is smooth as coffee stirred with cream.  “I will advise you, Highness.”  

“Thank you, Lionness.”  

“This name, which I cannot speak, _Highness_ , the one you plan to use for your tattoo:  you say it belongs to the Master?”  

“He was the first one to call me that, in all my existence.  I introduced myself to him as Castiel.  I introduced myself to him as an Angel of the Lord.  It belongs to him.”

“Write it in his language then.  In English.  Not in Enochian.  That belongs to you.  That belongs to the firmament.  Give him what already belongs to him, and it will not harm him, it cannot.”   _This name claimed him before the Mark did_ , she thinks, but keeps it to herself.   _This name is the reason the Mark hasn’t taken him, yet._

Castiel bows his head.  He knew she would know.  When he raises his head from the bow, his heart begins to expand with the joy of knowing that soon, soon, Dean will bear his mark, and know his love, and be able to forget his fear.  Hope fills up in him, like a balloon, that soon Dean will be able to feel him when they are parted, and that maybe they will therefore never truly be parted again.  Never be cold again.  

“Thank you, Lionness,” he speaks quietly, trying to remain dignified, and not let his heart's swelling make him effusive.”I will not disturb you further.”  He turns his back and walks to the exit, no longer bothering to disguise his gait.  

The moment before he parts the curtain, the knife Sekhmet had been flipping slashes into the cloth between his parted thumb and forefinger, and catches on its hilt.  He freezes.  So she is not concealing her skill anymore, either.  He smiles.  One day.

“Come back any time, Highness,” she laughs, dark but merry like the rippling shadows of a fire, as he draws the curtain back.  Her laughter follows him as he slides through the curtain and transports himself to the plane of fire, where his next errand awaits him.  

 

*****

 

Dean misses Castiel the moment they part, and his blood thrashes, hot, against the chambers of his heart, like a wild animal flushed with fever.   _Go back_ , it says.   _Go back to your angel_.  

When he arrives in Sam's cell, this fevered beast has hold of him, and he is thinking so hard about turning back and finding Cas again, holding him and breathing in his scent, that he does not even step out of the devil's trap.  He just stares at the stone wall in front of him with black eyes.  His skin is cold.  It's so cold.  He wants Castiel.  He just… He wants Castiel.  In his arms.  Now.  Always.  Why do they ever have to part?

The current answer is Sam.  Sam, pacing agitatedly in a small circle around his cell, flannel pushed up to his elbows, hair held back behind his ears.  His face is pale and his eyes are dark hollows.  It doesn't look like he has slept.  

“Dean,” he shouts, when he notices Dean's appearance, and rushes to stand before him, breaking Dean's thrall.  “What the hell, man?  Are you OK?  What the hell?” He holds Dean at arm's length, examining him for wounds, trying to decide if he is angry or worried, now.  He finds no damage:  Dean is whole and unharmed,  his skin clear, his face flushed, his hair mussed by Castiel's eager hands.  The Mark has healed Dean's body, and Castiel's love has healed the rest.  He seems to be in even better condition than sleepless, worried, Sam, though Dean was just stabbed and Sam has only been pacing in his cell.  

Angry, then, Sam decides, anger is the appropriate emotion.  He has been here, alone, helpless, fearing the worst, pacing, not sleeping, no one feeding him, and in comes Dean, two days later, not a scratch on him, dopey look on his face, even with the demon eyes, looking like he has spent the whole time having the best sex of his life.

Sam flings Dean back away from him in disgust, and starts pacing again; Dean is thrown off balance and takes a step backwards, still in the devil’s trap.  “I've been worried sick.  You could have taken two seconds out from boning Cas in the last two days to tell me you were OK.”

“Sam,” Dean starts.

Sam's anger is too potent to be stopped, now that it has been set free on a real target, instead of only spinning inside his head.  He continues.  “The last I see of Cas, he's losing his mind, telling me you're hurt, you're scared.   He pulls some mystery angel crap, and all of a sudden he's got angel eyes-- _angel eyes, Dean,_ when last I heard he was _Fallen_ \-- then he draws the biggest sword I've ever seen, like it’s nothing, like it’s a toothpick, and tells me I can't have a weapon, I can't help, it's too dangerous, and poofs me back in my cell. ‘The hell, Dean? What happened?  What did he _do?_ Where have you been? And, why the fuck haven't you told me a goddamn thing?”

Dean raises his hands, palms out, defensively.  “Woah, Sam, hold on, let a guy get a word in edgewise, would you?”

Sam huffs, and opens his mouth to fight again, as ever not finding Dean as charming as Dean finds himself.  This is _serious_ , why doesn’t Dean see that?  Is nothing serious, to the Demon?  

Dean cuts Sam off before he can berate him further.  “I'm here to tell you now, OK?  I'm sorry… For all that crap.  For scaring you, and leaving you; for you having to deal with Cas being… intense, and for not keeping you in the know.  I'm sorry.”

This gets Sam to close his mouth, at least.  It's rare enough for Dean to admit he did something wrong, especially demon Dean, especially to Sam.   He nods, and waits for Dean to continue.

“Some bad shit went down, Sammy, buncha people dead.  I was only hurt a little, on accident --” worry creeps up on Sam's eyebrows, but Dean is quick to ease it. “It's already healed, and Cas‘s got the prick that stabbed me on ice--”

“STABBED?” Sam’s anger mounts.  His brother, stabbed, while he was locked up like a dog.  

“...and _it's already healed_ ,” Dean reiterates, deliberately.  “And it was basically an accident, really, no big deal,” Sam gives him a look, at that, like being stabbed can ever be “no big deal”, though it’s really not, for Dean, anymore.  So he continues.  

“And Cas has the prick who did it on ice, and believe me, that means he's not gonna cause any more trouble, sorry sonofabitch is gonna regret every trouble he ever caused in his entire miserable life.   _Believe me_.  But I was… uh, upset, when I came back.  The Mark… got to me.  I… fucked up, Sam.  A buncha people died and I got mad and the Mark got outta control and I ruined some of Cas’ shit, some shit that is important to him, and I just needed to get AWAY.  So Cas and I went away.  It was only a few hours, for us.  I had to get away.  I wasn’t thinking about you, I was only thinking about myself, and how I felt.  How bad I fucked up.  I'm sorry.”

“You're really ok?” Sam asks, eyebrows high on his forehead.  Though he’s still mad at Dean for keeping him in the dark for so long, he’s also glad, perversely, that Dean actually did think about _himself_ , first, for once.  A lot could have been easier on them, on the whole world, in the past, if Dean had been more more able to do that.      

“Yeah, Sam, the guy didn't even mean to stab me, it was only a scratch, healed right up before I even got back here.”

“And the Mark… is it still,” Sam swallows, “‘out of control?”

Dean takes inventory.  He can't even feel the Mark right now; he actually glances down at his forearm to see if it's still there.  It is.  But Castiel… Castiel quieted it. Even more than he normally does; it’s completely quiescent.  Dean flicks his eyes back to green, from their demon black.  “No.” He says carefully.  “No, Cas...when I'm with Cas… No.  It's quiet, now.”

Sam nods.  “Can you tell me what happened?  Who died?  Who stabbed you?  Why did you bring him back here?  Cas said you were investigating Lucifer cultists?”

Dean exhales heavily.  “Yeah… I don't think they were actually Lucifer cultists.  I mean, yeah, that’s the ritual they were doing, but it doesn’t add up.  Wrong robes, for one thing.  Something’s not right, Sammy.  Something smells real fucking rotten.”

Sam holds his hands up.  “Woah, Dean, slow down.  Wrong robes?  What?”

Dean breathes deeply, again.  “These assholes, they were wearing red robes.”

Sam nods his understanding.  “Lucifer cultists usually wear black.” Sam knows a lot, about Lucifer.

“Yeah and at first, I thought this was just another detail they got wrong:  they called my name in their ritual instead of Lucifer’s, their bowl was gold plated instead of gold, they used pig’s blood instead of human, you know, amateur shit.”

Sam keeps nodding.

“But now I'm thinking maybe it means something.  Cuz, Sam, they were really into blood.  Way _too_ into it.  They had long, sharp knives.  They cut themselves where they knew…” Dean chokes up a little, but forces himself to go on.  “They cut themselves where they knew they would bleed out.” He gulps. “They all did.” Eyes turned inward, like he is reliving it, he continues. “And they touched me, and they said, ‘All for you,’ Sam, they said...and then they died.” A single tear leaks from the corner of Dean's left eye.  “Then they died.  They died at my feet.  A whole fucking pile of them, right there, and you couldn’t even tell they were bleeding because their robes were the same color as their blood.”  More tears flow, now.  

Sam’s anger fades away, seeing his brother’s pain.  Hearing this nightmare, just the latest nightmare, that Dean has had to face.  He wishes Cas had let him join Dean, so he didn’t have to face it alone.  “Jesus, Dean, Christ.  That sucks.  I'm so sorry.  I'm… How many?”

Dean wipes his tears away.  “Three.  Three dead, right there at my feet, Sammy last words out of their mouths a fucking prayer to me.  Three dead.  I knocked out two, before they could start with that shit.  And the leader… I brought the leader back here for Cas.”

“For Cas?”

Dean looks at the floor.  “Cas… Doesn't like it when I get hurt.  He'll… He'll find out, what these fuckers were up to.  If the leader even knows, he seemed like a pretty clueless son of a bitch to me.”

“I see.” Sam's jaw clenches tight on this response.  This is what he has heard whispered.  That Castiel is Dean's enforcer now.  That he uses his knives too well.  He hadn't thought he would hear this confirmed from Dean, though.  He thought Dean would avoid the subject, or deny it if questioned, not admit it freely.  Not admit that he has turned an Angel of the Lord, _his_ Angel of the Lord,  into… this.  

Dean shakes his head, as if to clear it, and returns to the point he had been trying to make.  “But the robes, I can’t get them out of my head.” Dean continues. “Black for Lucifer, but red for --”

Sam interrupts him.  “A blood cult.” _Fuck,_ he thinks.   _Fuck.  The blood oath.  Goddammit Dean, you and Cas and your fucking_ **_obsession_ ** _with each other._

"Yeah. That's what I'm starting to think.”

 _But he hasn't put it together,_ Sam thinks, _or he's in denial.  Or Cas has fucked his brains out to the extent that he_ **_can't_ ** _put it together.  He wouldn't be so casual… He’d be more upset, if he realized.  That this is what he has now, he swore a blood oath, it re-shaped reality, and this is what he gets, a blood cult that slits their throats and prays his name.  Not a Lucifer cult.  A_ **_Dean_ ** _cult.  Or Dean-and-Castiel._ Sam tries to think about how to break this to Dean.  There’s no good way, he thinks.  

“Why do you think… do you have any idea why they prayed to you?”  He tries, hoping maybe he can get Dean to break it to himself.  

“Not a goddamn clue, Sam.  They thought I was Lucifer,”

_I wonder if that’s true.  I wonder if that’s what Cas will find out._

“They kept calling me ‘Prince of Lies’, ‘Unholiness’, that kind of shit.  But Lucifer doesn’t usually take blood sacrifices.”

Sam nods-- this is true, Lucifer usually wants his agents alive so they can cause trouble.  Maybe he’s wrong, in what he suspects:  maybe these cultists really were just confused amateurs.  He hopes he’s wrong.  “I hope Cas can find out what they were up to.”

“He’ll find out.”  Dean says, finally, grimly.  He looks up at Sam.  “You can count on that.”

There is an awkward pause between them, as they imagine what this will entail.

Dean clears his throat, and continues.  “He might need help with research, after that.”  It’s a statement, though he says it like a question.  He is asking Sam, not telling him.  “To find out If there’s someone behind this, or of it’s just the beginning of something even worse.  Will you help him?”  

Sam nods again.  “I’ll help him,” he says carefully, not meeting Dean’s eyes.   _I'm afraid that there is someone behind it Dean.  I'm afraid that it’s_ **_you_ ** _._

“Thanks, Sam.  And I’m sorry.  For everything.”  

“It’s alright, Dean.  I’m just glad you’re ok,” Sam says.  He means it.  Even if Dean’s oath is what brought this blood cult into the world.  Even if Dean didn’t answer his question about what Castiel did to give himself angel eyes.  Even if he doesn’t know what that means.  

Dean nods, accepting Sam’s words.  “Cas will probably be a while with the leader and I… I have to fix the shit I broke.  I promised I would.  But he’ll come to you, when he’s done.  He’ll get you anything you need, OK?”  

“I… do you want… could I help you, with whatever it is you broke?”  

Dean’s face falls.  “No Sam, I… No.  I broke it, I’ll fix it.  I need to.”

“OK,” Sam replies, disappointed.

Dean ignores the disappointment in his brother’s voice.  He just doesn’t want… he doesn’t want Sam to see what he did, he realizes.  He doesn’t want anyone else to see what he did to Cas’ place, especially not Sam.  He doesn’t want anyone else to see how much he doesn’t deserve Castiel, how he is too weak to control the Mark.  He doesn’t want Sam to get it into his mind that he needs to be put down.  “You’ll help Cas, when he comes?”  

Sam nods, sadly.  “OK.  I’ll help him, Dean.”   _Though I don’t think we’re going to like what we find._

“Thanks Sammy.  And.  I really am sorry.  I…” he inhales deeply.  “I’m sorry for this whole thing.  I should have let Cas come with me.  I should have let him dress me up in the plate armor.  I shouldn’t have thought it would be easy.  Because when is anything ever easy for us, right?”  He gives Sam an ironic smile, with half of his mouth.  

“If it was easy it wouldn’t be life,” Sam says, returning the same half smile, thinking that in a moment, his brother, who he loves more than anything in the world, is going to spread his demon wings and leave him behind in this cell in the Pit of Hell, his desmene.  

He’s right.  Dean nods at him one more time, and then he is gone.  

 

*****

 

Castiel’s heart swelled when Sekhmet told him that yes, he could give Dean his Name, give it to him in blood, give over a part of himself that Dean would feel and keep forever.  

But he does not let it swell too large, or too long.  He has another errand, this one not joyful.  His face becomes a mask as he travels, and is set in cold stone before he alights in the plane of fire.  

He lands on a small island of broken, black, volcanic rock.  The island is roughly circular, thirty feet wide, and completely surrounded by molten red lava that stretches out into the distance, pocked with other, smaller, islands of rock until it collides with dark walls of the same stone that reach up high overhead.  Periodically, jets of steam and fire belch up out of the smooth lava, when some speck of ash or dirt falls on the surface and is instantly ignited.  It smells like sulfur, and ash, and shadows twist everywhere, like flames.  It’s hot, here, in the plane of fire, and Castiel breaks out into a sweat immediately.  

The island is almost bare, black and stark.  Nothing ornaments the rock, except, to Castiel’s right, on the edge of the island, a golden tripod, with slim, spidery, legs.  The tripod has an arm on top that extends out over the lava.  A golden chain hangs from this arm, and its extent is submerged in the lava, concealing what hangs from it:  a golden sphere.  Perfectly smooth on the outside, hollow on the inside.  

Hollow on the inside, and large enough to hold a man.

Not comfortably.  A man inside that sphere would have to be curled into himself to fit, and he _would_ curl into himself as much as possible to keep his skin from contacting the burning hot metal surrounding him at all angles.  No matter how this hypothetical man twisted, and turned, and scraped his fingernails at the smooth interior of the sphere, though, it still wouldn’t be possible to avoid being burned.  Roasted.  Alive.  Screaming where no one would could possibly hear screams that would be eaten by a boiling, heaving, sea of lava.  Not that anyone would care if they heard these hypothetical screams, anyway:  This is Hell.  This is where people go to scream.  This is where screams are _taken_ from bodies, by demons, and by things that are worse.

Things like Castiel.  

Castiel approaches the tripod and rotates a lever that brings in the chain and raises the sphere from the lava.  He gestures at the sphere, which is smoking and gleaming, all imperfections on its surface burned away.  At his gesture, the cult leader inside, not hypothetical, all too real, appears at Castiel’s feet.

The cult leader is dead.  This is immediately obvious to Castiel, who nudges his corpse with a foot anyway.  His skin is blackened everywhere it remains, his eyeballs have melted, his clothes have melted, the leather of his Birkenstocks has burnt away and the soles have melded onto his feet.  His body is contorted in agony, the bones of his fingers, strings of black flesh hanging off, are in claws.  The cult leader has turned to ash, and even in the still air of the plane of fire, flakes of his skin fall away and float to the ground.

Roasted too long.

Castiel reanimates him, but doesn’t heal his body.  He comes back to life first with a gasping inhale, and second with an agonized scream that goes on and on until the oxygen gained with that first inhale is gone.  Then another inhale, and another scream.  

Castiel listens to it with hard eyes fixed on the cultist’s ruined face.  This man could have avoided this fate, easily.  By not becoming a member of an evil cult.  By not attempting to summon Lucifer to Earth.  Most of all, by not raising his hand against Dean.  But now he has earned the golden sphere, and he will scream his endless scream until Castiel needs to talk to him more than he needs to punish him.  

He screams, and screams.  

Castiel draws his knife, the white ceramic, from where it rests against his back.  He trims his fingernails, cleans away the dirt of the cliff’s edge that crept beneath them as he clenched them down into the moss. He draws his own blood, on his forearm, and watches the wound bead, and then heal.  The cultist’s body keeps trying to die, from its wounds, much more than fatal, but Castiel doesn’t let it.  If this man wanted to die only one death, he shouldn’t have summoned Dean.  He shouldn’t have attacked the Master.  What did he think, would happen?  Fool.

The screams calm the memory of the panic Castiel held in his heart when he felt Dean be stabbed through the bond.  They calm the memory of Dean’s anger, his fear and anguish.  Eventually, they calm Castiel enough that he can show some small mercy.  If he did not have a task, given him by Dean, this mercy would be death.  Death for the cultist, and an end to his pain.  But the Master asked something of Castiel, regarding this cultist.   _We need to know what he knows,_ said the Master.  And _We will know what he knows, Master.  We will know it all,_ Castiel had replied.  

So instead of letting the cultist die again, Castiel heals his eyes, his mouth, his melted teeth, his tongue.  He heals the eyes, so that the first thing the cultist sees is Castiel, face hard, eyes flashing, black ash sticking to the sweat on his face, hand extended and holding his ceramic knife, with the fires of Hell raging behind him.  Castiel heals the mouth, and teeth, and tongue, so the cultist can give him answers.  He leaves the rest of the cultist’s body a wreckage.  

Then, he takes away all of the cultist’s pain.  He takes it in one quick snatch, but he does not dismiss it.  He holds it in his hand, a crackling ball of red lightning, ready to give it back.  Some of it, or all of it, once or many times or never:  that is up to the cultist.  

“Please,” the cultist starts to babble, when he realizes his pain has gone and he has stopped screaming.  “Please, Lord, please, no more, please, anything, please, I’m sorry.”  He would be crying, but his tear ducts have been burned away.  “I’m so, so, sor--”

Castiel interrupts him like he isn’t even talking.  “What is your name, mortal?”  His voice is hard, and so, so cold.  As cold as his eyes, which glint like steel in the flickering red light.  

“Ga-Ga- Gary, Lord.  My name is Gary.”  

 _The fel demon “Gary,” sworn to your service, Master,_ Castiel thinks, sardonically.  He thinks that Dean would probably say that this name goes well with the Birkenstocks, though he isn’t really sure why.  Castiel brings them back from the ash, caustically amused.  The cultist-- Gary-- can’t even feel them, as all the nerves in his feet have been burned away.  Castiel wishes he could take a picture for Dean, of this corpse named Gary, burned and ruined and wearing Birkenstocks, but he thinks that would detract from the severity of the moment.  He will tell Dean, about it later.  He will tell Dean about everything, that happens with this cultist.     

“Mortal,” Castiel continues, ignoring this ridiculous name.  “You are in the plane of eternal fire.  I am the fallen angel, Castiel, have you heard my name?”  

“Cast-- Lord-- what?”  Gary is too terrified to answer.  

Castiel repeats.  He often has to repeat himself, to the living corpses he questions in the plane of fire.  This is not new.  “I am the fallen angel, Castiel.  Have you heard my name?”  He gives just a little bit of Gary’s pain back, so that Gary knows that he can, so he knows there are consequences for the answers he gives to Castiel’s questions.  

He shrieks.  “Yes, Lord, yes.  You are the… you are the… companion of the Master.  You are the fallen angel, Castiel.”  

This isn’t really an answer, but it has gotten Gary to stop babbling and speak in full sentences, it has given him something easy to wrap his mind around, made him lucid enough to answer questions.  It is enough.  Castiel does not give him any more pain.  

“Do you know why you are here?”   _To answer questions.  To suffer.  To swear yourself to the Master._

“I don’t, Lord.  I thought… I thought I was dead.  I thought-- I thought the Master would kill me and that I would complete the ritual.  I thought he would kill me and take my soul to Hell where I would serve him.”  

“You are dead.  You are in Hell.  You will serve him.”  Castiel’s voice is flat and uninflected.  

Gary swallows, Castiel can see the movement of his muscles through the wreckage of his throat.  He looks away from the cold in Castiel’s eyes.

“What ritual?”  Castiel asks.   _What ritual did this one hope to complete?_   _Did he think he needed to die to complete the Lucifer summoning?_   

“Tell me how I can serve him, please, Lord,” Gary begs, evading the question.  Interesting.  Castiel gives him back some more of his pain.  

“You are serving him now.  You serve him by answering my questions.  You serve him by obeying me in every word.  You serve him by not making me hurt you.  He doesn’t…. He doesn’t like it when I have to hurt his servants.”

“He is merciful, Lord.  He is fair.  I love him.  Let me serve him,” the cultist grits out, though he can’t quite keep still, with the pain Castiel has given him.  

Castiel gives it all back, everything, in one burst.  This thing, blackened and pathetic in front of him, he does not get to love Dean.  He _stabbed_ Dean.  He _drew his blood_ .  He does not get to be one of the many, who will kneel at Dean’s feet and worship his name.  Not this one.  He is not _worthy_.     

Gary begins to scream again.  He spasms where he lays on the ground, and the rocks dig in to his raw skin and give him new pain.  Castiel closes his fist and takes it all back again, after a moment, after the flare of his anger has flashed and receded.  Gary lays panting on the ground, still wheezing out hurt cries, even only at the memory of what Castiel has just given him.  

“You serve him by answering my questions.  You serve him by obeying me in every word.  You serve him by not making me hurt you.  You may love him, but be silent about it.  You have not _earned_ the right to his worship.  Do you understand?”

“I understand, Lord.  I understand.  Please.  Mercy.” Gary’s voice is high, and desperate.    

“You may swear yourself to him, forever, if you want.  Is this what you want?”  

“Yes, Lord, yes.”  Like Castiel is offering him gifts of flight, or wealth, or long life and beauty.  Like he would rather have this, rather swear himself to Dean forever, than have his body back and his wounds healed.    

“Swear it,” Castiel commands.  “Swear your eternal soul, to Dean Winchester, the Master of Hell, and no other.”  

“I swear it, Lord.  My eternal soul.  To Dean Winchester, the Master of Hell, and no other.”  Nothing else is needed, to cement an oath of this type in the plane of fire.  Gary has already bled, he has already died, he has already begged, his soul has already departed him and been brought back.  Several columns of fire all flare up at once, from the lava, and heat the air even hotter.  That is all.  It is done.  Gary is a human soul no longer.  He is a demon, sworn forever to Dean’s service.  

 _Easy_ , Castiel thinks.  Too easy.  It is always too easy.  Humans break before him; they are wheat and Castiel is the wind and they bend towards Dean like he is the sun.   

“You serve him by answering my questions,” he repeats for the third time.  “He has seen fit to send me to question you.  Serve him.  Tell me.  What ritual did you hope to complete with your death?”  

Gary answers immediately, this time.  Eager to please.  “The blood ritual, Lord.  The ritual that binds.”  

An answer, but not an answer.  “Binds what to what?”    

Gary cocks his head to the side, and looks at Castiel, with the first expression he has shown during this interrogation besides agony.  It is hard to read, without a face, but it looks like… confusion.  Confusion?  What is confusing about this question?

“Surely you know, Lord.  The ritual that _binds_.”  Gary speaks apprehensively, like suspects that Castiel is testing him.  

Castiel lets loose a trickle of pain, he has no patience for riddles from a newborn demon named Gary.  “The ritual that binds _what_ to _what_?” He asks again, voice frozen.

Gary swallows again.  “The ritual that binds you to the Master, Lord.  The ritual that binds you forever.  Because you love him,”

Castiel catches himself before his mouth falls open in disbelief.  He wants to interrupt this foolishness; spear Gary on a spit and thrust him out over the lava and ask a him thousand more questions, starting with _Why,_ as he screams.  But he is stricken.  What is this madness?  

Words pour out of Gary like he cannot control them.  Maybe he cannot.  “You love him, and you should love him, because he is so beautiful, so fiercesome, he is true, and fair, he is everything.  We lo--” Gary stops himself, before completing this word, remembering what it felt like, to speak the word that is forbidden him, to receive all of his pain.  He continues with more careful phrasing. “He is... perfect.  You are perfect, Lord.  Your love is perfect.  It calls to us, through the void, across the veils.  It calls us to gather, it calls us to action.  You are bound to him forever.  We give you our blood to strengthen the binding.  We give and we are joyful.  All for you.”  

_Fuck._

Castiel understands, now.  He understands the ritual that binds what to what.  He understands the red robes, and the calling of Dean’s name, and the blood sacrifices.  

_Fuck._

Castiel gestures and Gary combusts into ash.  He can serve Dean by settling as dust on Castiel’s island in the plane of fire for the next century, and easing Castiel’s footsteps on the sharp, hard rock.  He can’t be in pain, as ash, ash doesn’t have a nervous system, and this is a flaw in Castiel’s action, the only flaw, but Castiel doesn’t care.  Gary is as obliterated as Castiel can make him, he _deserves_ to be obliterated, not alive and in Dean’s service, and he will stay obliterated unless Dean orders him back to answer more questions.  He doesn’t think Dean will order that, when he hears what Castiel has learned.

 _Dean_ .  Oh Heavenly Father, _Dean_ . Castiel’s heart, swollen as it was when he came to the plane of fire, sinks like a stone.  This is Hell.  This is what happens to hearts, in Hell, and Castiel should have known that his heart would not soar too far.   _Oh Dean._ Castiel seeks him out, finds that he is in the cache, feels that he is thinking of Cas, that he is proud.  He is probably restoring the cache, for Castiel, it is probably more beautiful now than it ever was; his knives are probably arranged again on the wall, and they are probably gleaming.   _Dean,_ his love.  So good.  So true.  His sinking heart turns to stone.  This is what Gary said.  This is why Gary and his cult had lured Dean, drawn his blood, died at his feet.  Not because they hated him.  Not because they wanted to bring forth Lucifer, and destroy the world.  

They did it because they were in love with him.  In love with his love for Castiel.   _The ritual that binds you to the Master, Lord_ .   This is what Gary said.   _Love_ is what drove them.  Oh, and how this is so much worse than if they had been driven only by the desire for power, for conquest; so much worse than if they had been only misled by Lucifer and his serpent’s tongue.  Oh, so much worse.   

Castiel enters the black, to travel to Dean immediately.  

 _Fuck_.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) WARNING: GRAPHIC violence done by Castiel against the cult leader in this chapter
> 
> 2) I had not intended on introducing any original characters (not that Sekhmet is truly "original", she is a figure from Egyptian mythology, but she does not appear on SPN, as far as I know), but I was so aggrieved by the egregious fridging of Eileen Leahy that I felt compelled to introduce a badass, female, character who is not white, not straight, not a love interest, and is not going to fucking die for pointless, lazy, induction of man pain.
> 
> 3) I have been working on this fic for a whole year! I have loved it. Thank you so much to everyone who has made it with me this far. <3
> 
> 4) I am brainheartpizza on tumblr (https://www.tumblr.com/blog/brainheartpizza). I post unedited excerpts between AO3 updates.


	12. Made of Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They stare at each other. Angel, and demon. Warrior of Heaven and Knight of Hell. In each other’s arms, where they belong. They stare into each other’s sorrow, and each other’s forgiveness, and their eyes heal what grace and Mark could not.

_And the crashes are Heaven, for a sinner like me…_  
   
 _\--_ Never Let Me Go, Florence and the Machine

 

\---Past---

 

_ “Dean,” Castiel replies, seeing where he is shrunken in his corner now for the first time.  He strides to Dean, cape flowing out behind him, fiery aura surrounding him, blinding.  When he reaches the corner he takes Dean in an embrace, crushing him against the plate of his armor, clapping gauntleted hands against his back.  “I came for you.” _ __   
__   
_ “You came for me,” Dean repeats, shell-shocked, arms coming up to hold Castiel weakly, feeling seared by Castiel's light but not caring.  “You…”. He can't believe it.  That this creature of awe and light would come for him, him, bloody and hunched in the dark, evil and marked by evil.  He tries again.  “You…” _ __   
__   
_ “Always,” Castiel says.  “I promised you, too, Dean.   Always.” _ __   
_   
_ __ The burning that has been scarring Dean's blood recedes completely and is replaced by a soaring joy, to hear the promise repeated on Castiel's lips.  Dean collapses in his arms.  “Always.”

Castiel holds Dean, crushed in his arms.  He holds Dean close, like he imagined every one of the million times he counted Dean's name.  He holds Dean, and he closes his eyes, and he buries his face in Dean's hair, breathes out his relief.   _ Dean.   _ Dean is here.  Dean is in his arms.  Dean is safe.  Dean is not hurting, anymore.   _ This is how I will keep you,  _ Castiel thinks.   _ Keep you always.  Safe, in my charge.   _ His grace surges inside him, his corona blurs and grows.   _ Yes.   _

Castiel, this shining warrior, shrouded in the might of Heaven, is sweet for a moment holding Dean like this, face in his hair; for a moment he is the Castiel that clung to Dean and whose heart skittered in his chest like spilled marbles when Dean kissed him and whispered, “Need you angel.  Need you so much.” He clings to Dean again now, like he is not wearing a hundred pounds of plate mail.  Like he is not hard and strong and on fire; like he is not what demons fear more than death.  He clings to Dean, just sweetly, like they are back in their bed, warm, skin to skin, heart to heart.  Like they will be again, soon.   _ Soon. _  The lightning fades from his eyes.  They slip closed.

Then he breathes Dean in.  

His eyes snap open.  Electric fire crackles out of them, tangible and sharp, like static.  His sweet clinging becomes a crush, once again and Dean gasps, in the crush.  He tries to encircle Dean within his impenetrable armor, within the light of his grace.  Surround him and protect him, as best as he can.  

Because Dean is hurt.  Dean is injured, and the smell of his blood, his pain, is heavy on the air of the dungeon.  Copper and iron. 

Dean and Castiel cannot stay here a moment longer, Castiel sees, clenching his jaw.  This is not a place that Castiel finds acceptable for Dean.  Not a place copper with his blood.  Not in darkness where Dean's eyes are forged with pain, where the dim light casts them the mossy color of an infested swamp.  Not where all the edges are rough stone, hard and unforgiving.  This is not a place, for Dean.  It is not beautiful or bright or soft.  It is not what Castiel would give to Dean.  It is not where he would kiss him, and heal him, and make him feel safe, again.

_I will take him away, from here,_ Castiel thinks, and cradles Dean's skull with his armored hand. His grace rushes, and its choir cheers again, _YES,_ wanting him to take Dean away to some place high and full of light and give to him, give and give.  Give him everything.  Pleasure and rapture and love that endures.  Grace like a hurricane spins inside him, tilting him on every axis, all at once, dizzying, screaming ‘raise him,’ and ‘slaughter his enemies,’ and ‘wrap him in cloth of gold,’ and, ‘a crown, a crown,’ and ‘his body, worship his body,’ and ‘build him a throne of diamond, and stand by him there.’ _Yes,_ he promises it, joyful, _Yes, everything, I will give him everything.  All this, and more,_ though his assent is carried away on the storm, like a shout into the hurricane wind.

He staggers.  He spreads his wings, to take Dean away.  

Dean inhales sharply, another gasp, as he sees Castiel’s wings unfurl, glowing soft and warm in the dim cell.  “Cas --” Dean breathes, awed, disbelieving.  “Cas, your wings, they're…” He doesn't know what to say first: that they are tawny and light where they used to be black, that they are so much larger than they were, doubled and doubled again, that they are so beautiful he hates to see them brushing the dirty, rough hewn, floor of his dungeon.  “You got your wings back, baby,” he whispers, finally, and reaches out to stroke their cloud-pure down with careful, gentle fingers.  They are so soft; they sooth his aching hands.  They are softer than Dean’s own wings, and they don’t spark like lightning.  They are warm, like a fleece that has been left out in the sun, and when Dean touches them he can just, just barely, hear the choir that also sings in Castiel's voice, now.  A hum, it thrills him.  It sings in his heart

“Not mine,” Castiel says, and he looks so  _ other  _ in his burning armor, with his wings spread behind him and his sword still drawn.  Immortal, beautiful and infinite, and not of Earth.  His jaw is square and hard and perfect, and his eyes are narrow, hiding secrets that could destroy the world, and his armor shines like a shard of Heaven.  “But strong enough to take us away,” He continues. Cryptic too.

“How--” Dean begins to ask, voice shaky, uncertain, in awe, but his breath and his voice are taken when Castiel flexes his wings once, and space starts to crack under the weight of Castiel's glory, and the dungeon walls start to fold and bend and fall away.  A thick web of hazel light --clearly Sam's casting -- is revealed, wrapped tight around Dean's chest, holding him to his cell, but no sooner can Dean see it than it disintegrates like dust.  It cannot withstand Castiel:  not even time or space or the veil between worlds can withstand him now _.   _

Castiel flexes his wings again, and they fly.

It is not as though he flaps them and they arise, higher from the ground on each flap, leaving the dungeon behind.  It is as though he raises them, and space, and time, bend to his intent, and the world fades and folds and crumples around them, and is left behind.

They move so fast, they move so far.  They move, and Castiel's intent rushes in to Dean, too, hitting him like a sheet of ice water, checking him every cell, every pore, every space between, and finding where he is injured and needs to be healed, and healing him entire, without a thought, without a word.  

“Cas, “ Dean tries again, as the Earth deflates like a punctured balloon and flies away, and the solar system starts to crumble around them, starting to tear and shear apart at the speed they are traveling.  “What--” he exhales a staccato “huh,” from the cold of the grace, of the flight, and his body shivers one heavy shiver.  It's good that the shiver interrupted him, because he doesn't even know  _ what  _ “What?” How did Cas get to the bunker? How did he get his wings back, and his eyes, and that armor? Where are they going now? What is that icy cold sensation, slicing him in half?

“Grace,” Cas says, voice to Dean's ear, voice low over the howl of their travel.  One word, answers three questions.  Three questions that Dean did not ask out loud.

_ You readin’ my mind again, Cas?  _ Dean thinks.  Cas only nods, his stubble scraping Dean's ear, in response.

Dean shivers at the scratch of Castiel’s stubble on his skin, he shivers at the intimacy of Castiel reading his mind, he shivers as the sheet of ice slices all the way through him, and is gone, leaving behind only a fresh sensation, like he just brushed his teeth.  But in his whole body.  The pain in his fingers, where he dug and clawed through his dungeon towards Castiel, towards Hell, is gone.  Completely gone.  Like it was never there at all.  He has been healed.

But this is not the way the Mark heals him.  The Mark lets him remember.  The Mark  _ likes it,  _ when he remembers. The Mark likes it when he hurts, and thinks about blood, and violence.   _ Not ours,  _ Cain hisses in his mind, disliking this intercession.   _ Not all ours.  You should be  _ **_all ours,_ ** _ you wear our Mark. _

_ No,  _ Dean thinks, crushed in Castiel's arms as space folds around them.   _ Now I belong to the angel, too.  Just as much. Maybe more.  My heart… _

_Don't want your_ ** _heart,_** Cain laughs at him.   _Black and small and smoldering_. _Don't want it.  Never did._ _Why would anyone?_

_ But Cas,  _ Dean thinks, and “Cas,” he says aloud, though his voice is stolen by the wind.  Cas came for him.  Cas healed him.  Cas is  _ here,  _ hard and gleaming under his hands, and Cain is just a phantom.  Cas will take his heart.  Cas will keep it safe.  Always.

“I will,” Castiel says, hearing Dean's thoughts so easily.  His voice is hard, and certain.

“Cas,” Dean sobs again, and buries his face in Castiel's neck, where it leaves his armor, where his skin is soft.  “My angel.  Thank you.”

“We're going someplace safe, Dean.” Answering the last of the questions that he plucked from Dean's mind,  _ where are we going now,  _ without preamble,without segue. “A place that is enough, for you.  A place where I can see your eyes in the light of the stars and  _ know _ that you are safe.  I will hold you there to me for a long time.  We will be as one, a star.  I will not let you go.” His voice turns fierce when he says this.  

“‘S long as it's with you, Cas,” Dean says into Castiel’s neck, because this is weird and Cas is weird and reality is melting all around them, but that's all that matters, to Dean, now; being with Castiel.  “As long as we are together.  Just don't… Don't make me leave you again.  Don’t let anyone take me, again.  Please.  Anywhere, but not that.” His voice breaks, and his healed fingers claw at Castiel’s back, trying to find purchase.

“Of course not, Dean,” Castiel replies, with a kiss to Dean's head.

Dean's fingers do not find purchase on Castiel's back, because it has been armored, and grown hard.  While Dean was gone his soft Cas, his baby bird, the kitten that melted into his palms with every gentle touch, has become this, become frightful to demons of the Pit, become  _ hard _ .   

This is not the Castiel that Fell, and clung to Dean and cried so hard when his wings were taken, and said he was cold, so cold, even in his dreams, if Dean was away. This is not the Castiel that was small and lost in a soft blue sweater when Dean was ripped from his side.  This is not the Castiel that was left behind.  That one soft, and sweet, with wide, crystal eyes.  The one that broke Dean's heart, with his need.

But Dean still recognizes this Castiel.  He would know him anywhere, in any time.  This is Castiel the angel, the warrior of God.  Hard, and fierce, with lightning in his eyes, breaking glass with his voice. This is the Castiel that mesmerized Dean in every way when first they met:  present in every thought, exhaled on every breath, itching and sparking below every inch of skin, with every touch.  Hard and cold.  And beautiful.  Beautiful in a way that was so fascinating that Dean dreamt about it every time he closed his eyes, and if he opened them and Castiel was standing guard over him, he was never sure whether he was awake or had only drifted into another dream.  This is the Castiel that Dean fell in love with.  Hopelessly, at the end of the world.  Irrevocably.

He doesn't know how this Castiel has come back to him.  It should be impossible.  Castiel is Fallen.  He cannot come back.  Dean cannot imagine how.  But he knows  _ why _ .  To save him.  Just, to save him.  

This Castiel used to seem untouchable, to Dean.  Entirely other.  Too pure, too bright, to be reachable by the grime on Dean's calloused hands.  Dean's heart broke then too, from his  _ own  _ need, thinking it would be forever unfulfilled, thinking he would have to love Castiel from so far away.  From the distance between Heaven and Earth, wide, insurmountable.  He hardly even noticed his heart breaking, that time, it was so hard, and brittle, then, and so many times broken.

But Dean can touch Castiel now.  Improbable, impossible as that seemed in Dean's dreams, in his whispered wishes and prayers.  In a time when it seemed each night when darkness fell that the sun might never rise again.

“Take me away, then, angel,” Dean replies, finally, and hugs himself to Castiel's hard body.  “Please.”

*****

 

Castiel’s wings are so strong, they carry Dean so far.  They carry Dean out of Earth's orbit, out of Earth's galaxy.  They carry Dean so far that Castiel doesn’t even know where they are anymore.  

It doesn’t matter.  He is holding Dean, still, and Dean is holding him back, and neither of them will ever let go.  And now it doesn’t smell like blood, and pain.  It smells clean, it smells like the fire of the stars, burning away and becoming the stuff of life.  Castiel tilts Dean’s head back, and smooths back his hair, and his face is pale and perfect in the light of the burning stars.  

Dean looks back at him, and his pupils are pinpoints, and his lips are blue.  His  _ lips are blue _ .  Dean can’t  _ breathe _ .  He chokes, and his arms squeeze around Castiel’s plate, though Castiel can’t feel it.  “Cas,” he whispers, on a last puff of air, “can’t breathe.”  He is so  _ cold _ .

Castiel turns grace to oxygen, and heat, and pressure.  He leans his lips down against Dean's and forms air from grace, breathes it into Dean's lungs.  He touches Dean's cheek with his mailed hand and warms his skin, every inch all at once, until it is tingling.  Dean moans, into Castiel's mouth.

“Cas,” Dean says again, when he can breathe full again, can release his lips from Castiel's to peer into his lightning eyes.  “Where are we?”  

Castiel looks around, his eyes seeing far, his mind comparing the patterns of stars he can see to the shape of the cosmos that lives perfect, crystalline, in every drop of his grace.  How does he tell Dean that he doesn’t know? How does he tell Dean that it doesn’t matter?  

They float there, in the black of space, in silence, Castiel thinking about how to answer Dean's question.  Arms still wrapped around each other, they bob and twist gently in place with the heat currents that flow around them.

Dean’s breathing calms, as he stares into Castiel's eyes, even as he does not receive an answer to his question.  No matter where they are, Dean knows those eyes.  No matter Kansas or Heaven or Hell or the firestorm that consumes at the edges of reality, Dean is whole if he can look into those eyes.

“We are somewhere safe.” This is what Castiel decides to answer.  This is what matters, not their coordinates, not the names of the stars around them. “You are safe.  We are far from anything or anyone that could hurt you, or part us.  As far as my wings could take us.  We are where the only one who can touch you is me.  We are where your eyes are only lit by the stars.”  He doesn’t know the name of the place, how astronomers would map it on their charts, but he knows that this is where they are, this is what what matters, this is what it means.  His hand reaches up, to hold Dean's jaw, softly.  “And they are so beautiful.”  They are.  They sparkle.  They are green and gold and they sparkle in the shadows of the nuclear fires raging around them.

Dean blushes, and asks shyly:  “And who can touch  _ you _ ?”  He asks this quietly.  “And what can light  _ your _ eyes?”    _ What about you, Castiel.  Blue eyes.  Angel. _

Castiel considers this for another moment.  He hadn’t thought about himself.  He hadn’t thought about how much grace this would cost him.  He looks within, at the sea of Raphael’s grace, and it doesn’t seem any shallower, but does it seem that the waves are less lively?  That when they crash they don’t crash as high, or flow as far?

This, too, doesn’t matter.  If he can hold Dean in his arms, safe and far from harm.  If he can hear Dean’s thoughts, and know him and keep him safe. “Only you Dean.” He answers.  “Only you.” He says it like he is just realizing it for the first time.

Dean nods seriously, accepting this charge with great dignity. “And who can kiss you, and find your heart, under this armor,” he knocks his knuckles on the heavy plate, though his skin sizzles when he does it.  

“Only you Dean,” Castiel whispers, amazed, and his eyelids are heavy, and his lips feel beestung and full.  He hopes that Dean will bite them.  Prays that he will.  Kiss them slow and suck on them hard.  “Only you, please.”  

Dean’s right hand releases Castiel’s back, so he can trail his fingers over Castiel’s lips, like he can’t believe that he can kiss them, even when now when Castiel has said ‘please.’  This is the warrior of Heaven, floating before him, the one he thought he would never get to touch. This is the Lord's angel, perfect and unattainable.  This is the most beautiful, the most fierce, the most fascinating.  How can Dean ever--  

“Please, Dean,” Castiel whispers again, eyes closed, lips parted, breath held.  “Please.”  He sounds like he wants.  He sounds like he  _ needs _ .  

This is how Dean can find the courage to touch him.  To kiss him.   _ Anything _ , for Castiel.   _ Anything.   _ Dean leans in, leans up, and presses his lips against Castiel’s softly, like he is afraid they are going to evaporate and he is going to wake up on a couch in a hidden safehouse on the eve of the apocalypse, wake up from a long, fevered dream with no Mark on his body and no angel in his arms.  

But he doesn’t.  By some miracle, he doesn’t.  This is not a dream.  This is real, and Castiel, diamond hard and nova bright, is his.   _ His _ .  All his, only his, forever.  He moans, and grinds his hips against Castiel's. “All mine, angel?” He has to hear it.  Or it won't be real,  it  _ can't  _ be real, this, it feels too good.  Too safe,  too soft.  It must be a dream.

“Yes, Dean.  All yours.  Only yours.” Castiel pants back, pulse quickened, breath shallow from just this, just this soft kiss, and Dean’s words, Dean’s need.  Of course it is yes.  Of course he is Dean's.  He has never been otherwise.  Not even when it seemed to Dean like he was too far away to ever be touched.  Especially then, when  _ his _ yearning to be touched was as wide as the space between them, and he just didn't know how to show it.  He has always been Dean's.  He was  _ made  _ to be Dean's.  He believes it.  That the Father made it so.

Dean leans in again.  Castiel's mouth.  His _ mouth _ .  Pink and soft and always chapped, lips a shape he has never seen before on any of the mouths he has kissed.  Those lips.  Perfect.  And  _ his.   _ His to kiss.  His to taste.  Dean shivers, and he does taste, he gently sinks his tongue inside Castiel's mouth and it is hot and open and waiting for him, just like always.  Castiel's hand threads into Dean's hair, and the strands catch and pull on the joints in his gauntlet and Dean whimpers because it feels so good.  Just this.  Just his tongue in Castiel's mouth, and Castiel's hand hard and heavy in his hair _.  “ _ Always, angel? _ ” _ Tears in his eyes, in his voice, because it  _ could _ be.  It could be always.  That is what they swore.

“Yes, Dean.”

“Forever,” He seals the promise, and he dips his tongue into Castiel again.  Castiel tastes like he always tastes:  like ozone and rain and spring water, but also different from how he always tastes, like the water is colder, has come from farther up the mountain where the sun has only just melted it from snow.  Is the answer to this ‘grace’ too?  Dean wants to know, but he doesn’t want to draw back his lips, to ask.  Instead Dean kisses Castiel, once twice, three times, ten times, a hundred, and Castiel kisses him back, armored hands hard and unmoving against his neck, his back, armored chest a wall against Dean's own.

“Cas,” Dean breathes, between kisses.  “I can’t feel you,” and his right hand brushes over the shoulders of Castiel’s plate.  “I can’t,”  there is such anguish in his voice.  Because the plate isn't Cas.  It's not his warm skin and smooth muscles.  It doesn't whisper to Dean, everywhere it touches him.  It doesn't whisper about safety, and fealty, and love.  Dean can’t feel Castiel’s heart beat, his blood pump, when he presses against it.  It is just quiet, and hard, and acid hot on Dean's demon skin.

Anguished too, wanting,  _ needing,  _ to feel Dean's skin against his own again, finally, Castiel sends his armor back to Hell in a flash of light _.  _  He leaves himself clothed in the garment that angels wear under their armor, a pure white tunic, covering his knees, belled and quilted around his arms, belted at the waist with a length of squares of pure gold.  His wings spread out, wide and proud, behind him.

“Angel,” Dean teases, and turns his own clothing into a negative image of Castiel's.  The same tunic, but black, belted by squares of ruby.  Where Castiel's feet are bare he wears shiny black boots.  His wings crackle into existence behind him, black lightning flickering.  From the corners of his forehead, he grows twin horns, twisted and vertical and sable.  He fingers them suggestively and smiles, smugly, mischieviously, at Castiel.  “Got my horns.  Where’s your halo, angel?”  

Castiel blushes and ducks his head, and smiles too.  He’s wearing Raphael’s halo on his wrist still, but he knows that’s not what Dean means, so he bends some of the light that passes by them from the stars hanging in the nearby sky, bends it into a circle that floats above his head.  This darkens the space around them, and casts Castiel's face in a soft, white glow.  

“There it is,” Dean smiles, and kisses Castiel again.  “There’s my angel.”    

“Only for you, Dean,” Castiel repeats what he has said before, though with a smile on his face.  It cost him grace, to bend the light, but grace is so much less precious than Dean's smile.  So much less.  He takes Dean’s right hand and places it over his own heart, so Dean can feel it beat again, finally.  “Only for you.”

“My angel,” Dean says, still smiling soft smile.  It fades a little, the corner of his mouth twitches.  “I missed you, so much, Cas. I’m sorry.  I couldn’t get back to you.  I tried, and it hurt so much.  I tried everything.  I tried to banish myself, even, with my blood, the blood from my hands, I tried to  _ dig _ , through the floor, so I could get back to you...” His voice fades away on the end of this admission, like it is too painful to bear remembering.

_ Oh no, Dean.  Oh no, my love.   _ “I’m sorry it took so long for me to find you,” Castiel offers, and the chorus under his voice sounds so sorrowful, mournful.  Its song matches the anguish in Dean’s eyes.  Anguish that goes deep.    

They stare at each other.  Angel, and demon.  Warrior of Heaven and Knight of Hell.  In each other’s arms, where they belong.  They stare into each other’s sorrow, and each other’s forgiveness, and their eyes heal what grace and Mark could not.  

“Never again,” Castiel says, at the same time that Dean says “But you found a way.”  

Castiel nods, slowly, seriously.  “I will always find away.”

Dean nods back.  He believes.  He doesn't understand why, he doesn't understand what he has done to earn this devotion.  But he believes.  He believes in Castiel. 

They kiss again.  This one is different from the last ones.  Those last ones that were so soft and uncertain; that were trying to hold on to the final moment of a dream that’s about to end.  This one is hot and sure and slow, like a river of lava that has escaped its caldera and is flowing down to the sea, flowing inevitably, drawn by gravity and the force of the tides.  Castiel’s hand finds Dean’s shoulder, the place where he gripped him tight, and grips him again, archangel’s grace burning demon skin that heals and blisters and heals again as Dean moans into his mouth.  “Yours, angel,” he moans, growing hard against Castiel’s hip from the ownership, the pain.  “Only yours.”  

“Forever,” Castiel agrees, as Dean’s skin sizzles beneath his hand, and Dean moves long and hard against him, and he moves back, in time.    

So they spin.  So they spin in the vastness, lips on lips, eyes closed, mouths open, skin burned to skin.  So they turn, like two stars caught in each other’s orbit, one dark, one bright, turning and turning around each other, forever.  So they kiss, until they fall out of time and forget that time even exists.  They only remember each other.  They only need each other.  Only Dean and Castiel.  

Dean stops breathing, again.  He doesn’t have to breathe, now, because Castiel breathes into his mouth, breathes in grace and love, and his lungs inflate and burn on the touch of Heaven.  He’s on fire and he’s not breathing and he doesn’t care.  He needs Castiel.  More than he needs to breathe.  More than he needs to not-burn.  So much more.  He needs Castiel’s grip on his shoulder, he needs Castiel’s handprint burned there again, he needs Castiel’s arm around his waist, he needs Castiel’s lips on his own, he needs Castiel’s body hard against his.  If to take Castiel’s breath inside him is to burn, he will burn.  He will burn until he is only a shell, in Castiel’s arms.

And how many times did Castiel count Dean’s name?  His mind is far-flung, high on Dean’s kisses, and every thought is miles away from every other thought, it takes so long to put them together, it is so hard.  But he tries to remember:  did he count Dean’s name a million times?  He thinks maybe he did.  Can he kiss Dean, a million times, now?  He remembers a million; a million lasted days and made his body hurt as he lay still on hard marble.  A million seemed like so many then, but it does not seem like it could be enough, now.  Can he kiss Dean once for every star that hangs in the sky around them?  Can he kiss Dean until the light building inside them burns all the way through, and they become stars themselves?  

“Dean,” he wants to ask, but then he would have to take his lips away.  

“Angel,” Dean replies, breathless.  It sounds like “Yes.”  It sounds like “Always.”  It sounds like “Forever.”       

So they spin.

***** 

Dean's breathing is so easy.  His body is so warm.  And soft, so soft, softness surrounds him everywhere.  It's soft and it smells like Cas, mountains and ice and high altitudes.  It's perfect.  He doesn't want anything to change, ever.  Just to stay like this.  Warm.  Easy.  Safe.  Cas.  His mind rises slowly, softly from sleep.  

Sleep?  He was asleep? Did he…  “Cas,” He tries to speak, and his voice is rough and broken.  And his chin is covered in… drool?  There is drool on his chin, and, oh God, “Cas, did I… Did I fall asleep while you were kissing me?  Did I, oh no, did I… Drool...on your wings? Oh God, Cas…”

Dean is reclining in Castiel's left wing, still floating in space, among the stars, and Castiel has wrapped his right wing across Dean’s body, to blanket Dean and cocoon him in, and pet him softly with one wing tip.  His eyes are soft, and smiling, looking over at Dean when he replies. 

“We kissed for a very long time, Dean.” He raises a hand from where it rests easy on Dean's hip to touch his own mouth, and a smile there, like he is remembering.  “A very long time.  The stars that are my brothers turned away from us, and left the Heavens when you moved against me.” His smile grows, now slightly wicked.  “I liked it very much.”

Dean dips his head, and blushes faintly.  “But I…”

“You went through a great trauma, Dean, captive to your brother, imprisoned, in pain.  You needed rest.  Don't worry.  I watched over you.”   _ I will always watch over you. _

Dean nods, and yawns. ‘Always watchin’ over me, angel,” breathes, into another yawn.  He is tired.  He had been hurting, it's true.  Until Cas came, and saved him.  His angel.  And it's hard to be upset, all sleepy, all wrapped up in Cas’ wings, all warm and soft and held close and just...floating.  “Like your new wings, Cas,” He says, petting uncoordinatedly at them with sleepy fingers.  “Real soft.” Then, a puzzled look on his face, “How'd you get ‘em?”

Castiel strokes a hand through Dean's hair.  “You got them, for me.”

“Didn't,” Dean mumbles, confused, leaning into Castiel's hand, into his wings, eager for Castiel’s touch.  

“You did.  They're Raphael’s.”

“You took Raphael’s wings?” Dean is confused.  This is confusing.  And he's starting to think it might not be as awesome as it feels.  “How?”

Castiel looks uncomfortable.  Dean knows that look.  That is the look of Castiel having made a bad call, a real bad one, one he knows Dean is not going to like.  It wakes Dean up real fast.  Like a bump in the night that wakes him and makes him reach for the gun under his pillow.  “What did you do, Cas?” Not slurring his speech with sleep.  Not any more.

Cas doesn't answer, right away, the hand not threaded into Dean's hair fidgeting with one of the rubies on Dean's belt.  

So.  Right.  Not awesome.

“Tell me Cas.  Just tell me.  Don't hide from me.  Please.”  _ What did you do?  What did you do?  Am I going to lose you, God-- _

Castiel sighs, as Dean's panic spirals, and taps his fingers on Dean's hip.

“Cas.  Please.” Dean's voice is barely holding on to the edge.  His mind is barely holding on to the edge.  He imagines the worst.  The worst he can imagine is pretty bad.  Castiel gone, where Dean can't follow.  Castiel suffering.  Castiel obliterated, like he never existed at all.  Dean forgetting about him.  Dean remembering, but not being able to help.  Dean having to live with that, forever. “Please,” He grinds out again.

Castiel flinches, feeling Dean’s fear, and finally answers.  Reluctantly.  “Dean, you have to understand, when you left, I didn't have anything,  _ anything,  _ I was so weak, and so scared, and there were so many enemies all around me, and I  _ hurt _ , I…”

“Where did you get the wings, Cas?” Dean's clamped down on himself now, and his tone is flat.  Turning off his emotions.  Protecting himself.  God, Castiel wishes he hadn't made Dean feel like he had to do that.  That is not how he should make Dean feel.  That is not how he should keep Dean safe.  He hates seeing Dean like this, with the light extinguished from his eyes.  He wishes, too, that he wasn't about to make it worse.  But this is the fallout he knew was coming.  This is what he knew Dean's rescue could cost him.  He already signed the receipt, for this price.

He is hesitant to pay it, anyway.  Much easier to imagine coping with Dean's hurt, his anger, when he is only a hypothetical, future Dean, and current-Dean is imprisoned, in danger, in pain in a dank dungeon.  Much harder when Dean is here, and just rising from sleep and kisses, and has closed off his face to make himself ready for betrayal.

“I… Made a trade for them.” This is the best start Castiel can manage, to start.  Hesitant and vague.

“What did you trade, Cas.”  _ Oh God, what did he trade, what can it be, am I going to lose him again, I can't, I can't.  _ Dean’s fingers dig deep into Castiel's waist, trying to hold on to him, and keep whatever is coming from taking him away.  

Castiel looks away.  Dean gulps around a knot in his throat.  This is not going to be good.  Not good at all.  This is going to be bad.

“I… Traded my soul.”

Bad.   _ Fuck. _

“Cas!!!” Dean pushes back, away from Castiel, and Castiel lets him go, unresisting, like he was expecting this reaction. They fly away from each other, in the zero-gravity, and keep flying with nothing to stop them, though once they are ten feet apart Cas flutters his wings and follows.  Carefully maintaining the buffer between them.  Ten feet apart.  No closer, no farther.

Dean yells, to cross the distance.  “What the fuck!  Why the fuck would you do that?  You know better than that, Cas, you--”

Cas hangs his head and interrupts Dean.  Dean's right, he does know better, but there's more.  There's even more, on Castiel's bill,and he wants to put it out on the table where Dean can see it all, holding nothing back.  “And I made a deal with Crowley.” He has to get it all out there, all this poison, before he is too afraid, and can’t.  Before it starts to seem like a good idea to lie.  He  _ won't _ hide from Dean, won't lie to him.  That would only make this worse, he knows.  He will follow Lucifer’s star this far, no farther.  

Dean drops his arms to his side, and stills.  “What did you say?” Not yelling anymore.  It’s worse.  This quiet voice.  Small, and hurt.  Angry and scared.

Cas flinches.  He knows Dean heard him.  There are no other sounds, in the vacuum.  “I said I made a deal with Crowley.” He doesn't raise his eyes.

“That's what I thought you said.  But right up until this moment, I also thought that there was no way, no fucking way, that you would  _ ever  _ tell me that you dealt your SOUL to Crowley.  Jesus, Cas, how could you? How could --”

Castiel looks up sharply.  “I didn't deal my soul to Crowley.”

“Cas, what?  What the fuck is going on?  You just said that you traded your soul, and that you made a deal with Crowley.  What am I missing?”  Dean is  _ shaking _ now.  He is angry, but the anger is only a facade.  The anger is covering his  _ fear _ .  Castiel doesn’t need archangel’s grace to see that.  

Castiel fists his hands at his sides, clenches his eyes shut tight.  “I did make a trade, and I did make a deal but they were… separate occurrences.”

Dean opens his mouth to badger Cas about this further, but Cas waves him off.  “Let me just… Let me explain, Dean?  Just listen to me?  Please?” when he opens his eyes again they are wide and full and lined with tears, and when they meet Dean's they pierce right in to Dean's heart.  Suddenly Dean wishes there wasn't 10 feet between them.  Suddenly he wishes he hadn't lost his temper.  He doesn't know what Castiel had to face, to save him.  He is the one that left Castiel, powerless and hurting and alone and cold, so cold.  He left his angel like that, in  _ Hell,  _ when he needed Dean so much.  So much.  No wonder Cas had to go down some bad roads.  Dean should understand that.  He should understand that as well as anybody, better.   He looks down at the Mark.  Cain laughs at him, in his mind.  

Dean exhales heavily and spreads his arms wide.  “Cas, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have… I should have listened to you first.  But your soul, baby?  I just --” he interrupts himself.  “Come here, please?”

Castiel nods meekly, and flaps his wings hard enough to fly into Dean's arms.  “I can get my soul back.  Right now, if you want.  I'll show you, I'll tell you everything.  But we have to go back to the Pit first, ok? Because I need my wings, to get us there.  It’s so far...”

Dean tucks Castiel's head under his chin and kisses his hair.  “OK Cas.  OK.  Whatever you need.  I'm sorry.  I shouldn't have yelled to you like that.  I'm -- you came for me.  That's what matters, I know.  I'm sorry.”

“I understand, Dean, I… Believe me, I wish there had been another way.”

Dean nods into Castiel's hair, and holds him tight.  “Tell me, baby.  Take us home.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is short. I originally planned it to be about twice as long, and that's what I have notes for. But I am so far behind on my only-in-my-mind once a month posting schedule, that I wanted to post anyway. Dean and Cas kisses, for you!
> 
> I'm behind because this month I moved from New York to California and started a new job. Not enough time for fic writing! Hopefully the next month will bring me more calm and more energy and time to write.
> 
> *****
> 
> I am brainheartpizza on tumblr (https://www.tumblr.com/blog/brainheartpizza). I post unedited excerpts between AO3 updates.


	13. Lightning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “There's so much I want to do for you, Dean. So much I’ve imagined.” Castiel answers Dean’s unfinished question, his voice as steady and hard as his eyes. His voice bleeding with lust. Dean shivers. He has imagined, too. It didn’t compare, to this. It was only a shadow, as much as he wanted, and as long. 
> 
> “There's so much I want to do to you.” And that's one word different, for vs. to, but it's the difference between being loved and being a hot, wet, hole; it's the difference between being caressed in a bed of soft memory foam or fucked hard against a marble wall. And Dean hears it, he hears the difference, and his shaking intensifies, because that voice, Castiel’s voice, deep and rough and serious as the grave, that voice is sinking through his bones and turning them into gleaming, liquid, gold, and the words it is saying, what Castiel is going to do to him, ricocheting in his brain like Castiel fired a bullet there.

_The angel opens his eyes_  
_Pale blue colored iris_  
_Presents the circle_  
_Puts the glory out to hide, hide_  
  
_Oh now feel it, comin' back again_  
_Like a roll of, thunder chasing the wind_  
_Forces pullin' from_  
_The center of the earth again_ _  
__I can feel it._

_I can feel it._

\--Live, Lightning Crashes

 

\---Past---

 

“Get it back.”

“Dean--”

“You said you could get it back, right? Right away, if that's what I wanted.  Were you lying?”

Castiel doesn’t answer.  His face has gone vacant, a little slack, his lips and fingers twitching.   _What is he thinking?_ Dean wonders.   _Is he thinking of a lie?  Will I know to not believe him, when it passes his lips?_

Dean watches Castiel carefully where he kneels in the middle of their bed, in the Pit.  He is still in exactly the same spot where he laid Dean down after he brought him back from the stars on cloud-soft wings.  He had laid Dean down so carefully, so gently, and his body had been so warm above Dean, and his angel's garment so soft, and his wings such a gentle cage, and Dean had felt his breaths, for a moment, as Castiel held him with arms and wings, breaths in and out, easy rises and falls of Castiel's chest, against Dean’s.  They breathed together, as one.

Only for a moment.  Dean had wanted it to be longer, he had wanted to just lay there; it was so soft, the light diffused golden through Castiel's feathers.  He had wanted to take Castiel’s face in his hands and stroke his stubbled jaw with his thumbs, and thread his hands back into Castiel’s hair and draw him down for a kiss.  He wanted to kiss Castiel until Castiel couldn't help but move subtly against him, he wanted to move back against Castiel, too, until they came together, warm and easy, with broken, silent, breaths and melted into each other, and Castiel’s wings collapsed over him in a soft, golden, blanket.  He wanted Castiel’s body, naked against him, he wanted everything.  

He wanted it to be sweet and slow and soft, because he had missed his angel, he had missed him so much, and Castiel was so beautiful, holding him now, with so much care in his eyes.  It had been so much of pain, to be away, from Castiel, and hardness in the bunker’s dungeon.  

He had left Castiel cold and alone and afraid, and he needed to make him warm and safe again.  He needed to show him the love without words that filled up his heart.

But when he reached up his hands, he looked into Castiel’s eyes, and they burned.  They burned with a cold light.  That was _not_ the Castiel that he had left behind. Those were _not_ his tear filled, gentle eyes, the ones that panicked as Dean disappeared into the veil.  Those were the eyes of the warrior, of the heretic, of the Castiel that could do _anything.  Demons ran from him, didn't they?  He appeared, in the bunker’s dungeon, where he should not have been able to appear, didn't he?  And he carried a burning sword?  And he was on fire?_

Yes, Dean answered himself.   _Yes_ .  He thought _Yes_ , and he _wanted_.  He wanted to feel this Castiel’s teeth on his lips, tongue in his mouth, cock against his body.  This was the angel Castiel, who Dean has dreamt about, who Dean has wanted, who Dean has wondered “if he came to me, in his glory, and took me, could I bear it?”  This Castiel poised over him right now, like a thief, strong and dangerous.  

Dean _wanted,_ he did.  He wanted to pull Castiel down, and rake his fingernails into Castiel’s scalp.  He wanted to bite Castiel’s mouth and be bitten in return.  He wanted to scratch at Castiel’s neck so Castiel would know it was OK to be rough, that if Castiel fucked him like a whore he would whimper and come hard against Castiel’s pure white garment.  

He _wanted_ , he decided, even if Castiel’s eyes were burning, even if they were the wrong eyes, the bright ones, instead of the sweet ones.  He _wanted_ that, and what it meant, hardness, instead of sweetiness.  His blood had run hot with it.  And so he had reached up, his fingers itching to be in that hair.  And Castiel looked down at him, and his eyes were burning cold, and they grazed over Dean’s body like he was going to devour him, and Dean _wanted_ it.

But.  But.   _But_ , his brain stuttered against his lust.  His hands clenched into fists, and stalled.   _But_ those eyes were _too_ cold, _too_ hard.   _But,_ Castiel’s soul.  Where is it?  Where has it gone?   _But_ , Castiel was empty.   _But._ Did he need Dean's help?   _But,_ what was this costing Castiel, to glow and shine for Dean like this, to be this diamond, hard and bright?  

Dean lay there, underneath his diamond angel, and he could imagine, could imagine too well, what the price of those bright eyes might be. It might be too high, far too high.  Those eyes could have been shining out at Dean while Castiel was being torn apart by darkness inside, strips of sharp darkness slicing him and cutting him deep while he cried out for Dean to save him.  Castiel could have been _hurting_ .  His angel.  And maybe he wasn’t hurting, maybe he was OK, maybe there was nothing behind the lust in his eyes but more lust.  But maybe not.  Maybe his soft, sweet angel was trapped in there, in that diamond body, trapped inside a hard, cold, soulless cage, fighting to get out, calling Dean's name while Dean could not hear, frustrated tears falling from his eyes, and Dean could not see.  And how could Dean have been with him, how could Dean bite or kiss or scrape, how could Dean do _anything_ , until he knows for sure?

So his hands never reached Castiel's hair.  They pushed Castiel aside, they flattened against the bed so he could raise himself upright.  So he could stand, and start to pace, his black devil’s robe and his horns and the rubies he teased Castiel with fading away into jeans and a tshirt and a flannel.  

He paced, and the first words out of his mouth were:  “Get it back.” Nothing else, until then.

“Dean--” Castiel had said in reply, _Dean_ , instead of “Yes,” instead of “Of course,” instead of “I’ll do it now.”  Because as Dean pushed him aside, as Dean paced at the side of their bed, he found himself surprisingly reticent.  He didn't want to release Raphael’s grace.  Not yet.  Not so soon.  Yes, he had promised himself he would use as little as possible, and yes, he had promised he would give it up as soon as he could, and yes, he has already broken those promises.  Healing scratches on Dean's hand that would have healed themselves.  Taking Dean to the stars.  Bending light to make himself a halo, to see Dean smile.  It was time and past time to give Raphael’s grace up, give it back.

But he didn’t want to give it up yet.  Sam could summon Dean away, again, bind him more strongly, hide him better, he told himself.    

He told himself that, but it was a lie.

Even unspoken, it was a lie.  That was not why he wanted to hold on to this stormy sea and let it rage against his skin, and keep his shining eyes, and let them spark lightning in the storm.  That was not why he didn’t care that he was risking his soul, his immortal soul, every second.

The real reason, the reason that was not a lie, was that Raphael’s grace was singing a heightened chorus inside of him, and he knows why.  It sang because Dean was _close._ Dean.  The charge given to him by the Father.  Grace only wanted to serve him.  Grace only wanted to be closer to him, to cover him and protect him.  

Grace _strives_ for Dean’s touch, reaching, reaching, from within. It rises and falls in volume with Dean’s breath.  It rises and falls as Dean paces closer and farther away.  Dean is the moon and Raphael’s grace is the tide and Dean _pulls_ at it.  Pulls and twists it into new shapes, hot metallic shapes that _gleam_ and fly fast and dare Castiel to cut his skin on their sharp sides.  Mirror shine shapes reflecting images of all the ways Castiel could touch Dean, all the sensations he could feel, all the noises he could coax Dean to make.  Shapes that slice and twist, every one flying by and gone in a second, too fast to count, too fast to categorize, making his mouth water, until the chorus inside him sounds like a shriek, instead of a song.

He sees:

_Dean on his hands and knees, mouth open wide, while Castiel fucks him from behind.  Dean on his back, while Castiel rides him with his head tossed aside, neck exposed and wet with sweat.  Dean on his knees, Castiel’s cock in Dean’s mouth, overflowing, heavy and wide and hard.  Dean held against the wall with Castiel’s grace, mouth parted, eyes shut tight and rolling wildly behind damp lids.  Castiel's hand, veins risen from the grip, pulling on Dean's hair at the root.  Dean’s shoulder, pale, but with Castiel’s teeth marks red there and surrounded with purple bruises.  Castiel's fingers wet and hot in Dean's mouth.  Dean’s mouth, bitten.  Dean’s mouth, open and begging.  Dean’s mouth, screaming Castiel’s name.  Dean blinded by grace, Dean gagged by grace, Dean immobilized by grace and crying, overwhelmed by Castiel’s tongue on his body.  Castiel’s come on Dean’s stomach, on Dean’s back, on his face, inside him.  Dean's eyes, lidded, heavy, dark, tear-filled, always on Castiel, never looking away._

Castiel sees.  He sees these razor sharp images of what could be.  What he could _do._ He is so powerful in them, he is so rough, and in every one Dean _loves_ it, and in every one Dean feels so _good_ .  His cock throbs.  He wants.  He needs.  Dean under his hands, his mouth, God, Dean under his _mouth_.  

And Dean is pacing so close. So close, now.  Castiel could drop into his guard in a heartbeat, he could **take** him, he could _know_ Dean, in every way; he could drive him _insane_ , he could make him _scream._ And he wants to, he wants everything Raphael’s grace shows him and more.  He wants to _drown_ in it, in Dean, in the sensation _._  His fingers _twitch_ . He wants--

“Cas!” Dean's shout sounds worried, and he snaps his fingers in Castiel's face.  “Earth to angel.  You with me, baby?”

Castiel blinks.  Did Dean say something to him?  Did he not reply, for a long time, too long?  Just thinking about how Dean would feel, how he would sound…

He shakes his head, to clear it, before he drifts away again.

“I'm here Dean.” He doesn’t know what Dean said. [ _Get it back._ ]  He doesn’t know what answer he should give.  He raises his eyes to Dean’s face, to try to find some clue there.  But his fingers are hot and scratchy.  He wants to touch Dean, he has to touch.  The images are driving him crazy.  The potential, unfulfilled.  He is choking on it.  He can barely see what is real, he can only see what he wants.  Razor-sharp, hard and smooth as glass.    _Dean_.  

He starts to rise, to leave the bed, to crowd into Dean’s personal space, to touch his fingers to Dean’s bare skin.  It will be a lightning bolt, when his fingers land on Dean’s skin.  It will be a night-time strike.  It will be devastating.  It will leave chaos in its wake.  

He pauses.  One foot is on the floor, one knee is on the bed.  

 _Devastate?_  Is this a word he should use to approach Dean with his touch? It has not been, before.  Before it has been _adore, worship, cherish, protect._

Why are the touches that he imagines on Dean’s skin so rough, now?  Where are the sweet kisses, that make him tremble?  Why are eyes on fire, instead of brimming with tears?  Here he is, barely breathing around his lust; where is his love?  

He casts his eyes down, and looks within, to find it.  If he cannot find his love for Dean, he is lost.  It is the star he has to follow, now.  The only other star he has left is Lucifer’s.  He has forsaken all the rest.

He looks within:

_Your love is with your soul.  You don’t have it.  You should get it back.  Dean wants you to get it back._

_But it would feel so good, Dean would feel so good.  I would_ **_make him_ ** _feel so good._

_But that’s not how you should love him._

_No, that is not how I would love him.  It is how I would_ **_fuck_ ** _him.  He would scream my name.  He would_ **_die_ ** _from it and I would bring him bac_

_That’s not what you want._

_It is._     

Castiel’s body doesn't care, what answers he finds, in his heart.  It moves him off the bed.  Across the floor.  Into Dean's space.  It knows what will feel good.  What will feel so good.   _Dean_ , his heart beats, it still beats: _Dean._  Castiel feels every pulse of blood.  He feels every inch of skin, so sensitive, in anticipation.   _Dean_.    

Dean is very quiet, very still, his eyes suspicious on Castiel’s.  Are they suspicious because Castiel did not answer whatever question he asked?  Are they suspicious because Castiel has stalked into Dean's space now like a predator, dangerous and slow?

Castiel holds those suspicious eyes with his own, and he lifts his right hand, and with just his index finger he traces the lightest touch up the inside of Dean's arm, from elbow to wrist.  The touch to devastate.  The touch to destroy.  He touches with _intent,_ with the images of everything he wants to do to Dean almost bursting out of his skin, attacking Dean.  Blue sparks leap off Dean's flannel, following Castiel's finger.  Castiel’s grace _races_ down every nerve ending his finger passes, into Dean’s spine, into his brain, carrying that intent, hungry.   _Starving._   _Devastating._

Too much.  A concussion grenade goes off inside of Dean, and he staggers.

_If he came to me, in his glory, and took me, could I bear it?_

Dean’s suspicious eyes roll closed.  “Cas,” he breathes, trying to keep steady, trying not to pant.  Trying not to let Castiel see that he has been _devastated_ (Castiel already knows.  Castiel can see everything.  Dean cannot hide anything, from him, no, his grace _sings_ to him about Dean).  

“What,” Dean gulps.  “What was that?” His voice just a little too high.  

That touch -- it was like a wrecking ball.  It was like the first time seeing the ocean.  It was like falling off the edge of an old, flat, Earth and being caught in the mouth of a dragon.  It smashed Dean to pieces, took his breath away, made his stomach drop and his skin feel the sensation of sharp teeth, _everywhere_ .  It lit him _on fire._ And crazy, it’s crazy; Cas only touched him with one finger, not even on his skin, only on his flannel.  He shouldn't feel so hot, so _exposed._ He shouldn’t feel like he is shaking apart.  His cock shouldn't be rock hard in his jeans.  He shouldn’t be wondering if he can even _bear it_ .  What _was_ that?  What did Castiel _do_?  And what is he going to do next?  And will Dean survive it?

The right side of Castiel’s mouth twitches up, just only noticeably.  Yes.  He will give the touch that devastates.   _Again._

Again.  Just one finger, just tracing the inside of Dean’s covered arm, so lightly, so slowly.  His eyes on Dean's, steady and hard.  And Dean _shakes_ , his body _shakes,_ from just this touch, the repetition too much over nerves already stripped and raw, and Cas’ other hand reaches out to his shoulder, to steady him.  Sparks explode from the new grip, like a spinning saw with monster teeth clashing on hot steel.  Dean imagines the sound of that saw, that collision, and he hears it rising in his brain, drowning out the quiet.  Making him crazy, unsteady on his feet, overwhelmed with sensation.   _From just one touch.  What if… his mouth… oh God, his mouth..._

Dean's next inhale is a struggling wheeze.  “Cas,” he can barely speak.  “What --”  Is his heart going to stop?  Is he going to have a seizure?  Is he having one already?  Is this what it feels like, to have a seizure?  Will Castiel bring him back, if his brain bleeds out, and touch him again?  He hopes so.  God, he hopes so.  

“There's so much I want to do for you, Dean.  So much I’ve imagined.” Castiel answers Dean’s unfinished question, his voice as steady and hard as his eyes.  His voice _bleeding_ with lust.  Dean shivers.  He has imagined, too.  It didn’t compare, to this.  It was only a shadow, as much as he wanted, and as long.  

“There's so much I want to do _to_ you.” And that's one word different, _for_ vs. _to,_ but it's the difference between being loved and being a hot, wet, hole; it's the difference between being caressed in a bed of soft memory foam or fucked hard against a marble wall.  And Dean hears it, he hears the difference, and his shaking intensifies, because that voice, Castiel’s voice, deep and rough and serious as the grave, that _voice_ is sinking through his bones and turning them into gleaming, liquid, gold, and the _words_ it is saying, what Castiel is going to _do to him_ , ricocheting in his brain like Castiel fired a bullet there.  

“There's so much I want you to feel.” Castiel continues, stroking the fingers of one hand down Dean's face, his jaw, touch still sparking, stripping Dean raw with its intent, _devastating_ , until Dean can hardly stand, knees weak and legs liquid.  He can’t pretend, anymore, that Castiel isn’t affecting him.  He can’t pretend that he isn’t clay in Castiel’s hands.  To be done with as Castiel wills, to be formed into what Castiel imagines.    

Castiel holds him up.  What he imagines is so _beautiful_.

“Can you feel me?”  Castiel’s voice has dropped to a sandpaper whisper, delivered by parted lips close enough to Dean’s ear for Dean to feel the vowels breathe by.  He is so close.  They are so close now, their bodies.  Dean’s trembling, Castiel’s diamond hard and strong.  So close.

“Yeah… Yes, Cas..” Yes, Dean feels him.  God, he feels him _everywhere_.  He feels Castiel like Castiel is an electrical field and he is dispersed everywhere, all around, on Dean’s skin, stimulating every cell, in the air, electrifying Dean’s lungs, on the ground, zapping into Dean’s legs and making them weak like water, streaming into his brain and filling it with zig zags and static and the sound of screeching metal, vibrating across his hips, his cock, making it so hard it hurts where it is trapped in his pants..

What is Castiel _doing_ to him?  And how can he make sure that it never stops?  He will beg.  On his knees.  So this doesn't stop.  He will do anything.  Anything.      

He opens his mouth because he is ready to beg “Please.  Please.  Castiel.”  To beg him please, never stop.  To beg him, please, more, though I don’t deserve it.  To beg him, please, Castiel, this has been my dream every night since I met you and stabbed you in the heart.  To beg him, please, Angel, beauty, please, anything, for you.  He opens his mouth--

But that's when Castiel scrapes three fingers, nails dug in, down Dean's back from his nape.  Straight down his spine, the sparks fly, invading his nervous system at its root.

He screams.  

Castiel does it again.  

Dean wants to scream, but he can’t.  Dean wants to beg, but he can’t.  He doesn’t have a voice anymore, he only has roaring static that drowns out everything but his pounding heartbeat.  He doesn’t have a body anymore, he has a magnet that is so charged, so drawn to Castiel, that the bond between them when they touch is going to turn them from two bodies to one.  It is undeniable.  Castiel is going to fuck him with his grace, he's going to, he's already, and it makes Dean's tongue thick in his mouth and his cock leak in his pants knowing that it is going to happen, it's already happening, Cas is going to scratch his nails down Dean’s back again so he can scream again and come, come all over Cas in spurts and long white spurts until he is empty and dry and it hurts to come and still Cas is not going to stop raking his fingers down Dean’s back, staring at him with lightning eyes while Dean sobs into his chest, spent and broken: _Castiel, Castiel, Castiel._

_Yes.  Please, Castiel, Yes._

But _no_ , there is a little tiny voice, quiet and far away under all the screaming static, _no,_ he remembers, _no, Cas, just wait, get your soul back._   **_This_ ** _is the lie_ .   _This touch, this is the lie, and I know not to believe it._   _You said you could get it back.  You said you would get it back right away.  You have to. It’s too important, this… yes, but your soul first.  Please.  Please.  No._

 _Yes,_ he thinks, while he’s screaming.   _Oh yes._

 _No,_ he thinks, when Cas’ hand lifts off his back to find the nape of his neck again.   _No, Cas.  Wait._

Cas reads both right off him.  He reads the _yes,_ and his grace sings back _yes,_ **shrieks** it, and inside he is spinning so fast it’s dizzying, spinning around and around in a constant replay of the sound of Dean’s scream, thinking about what’s next, about what’s more, power bursting off of him in an electric corona; thinking about mouths on skin and where to bite, and how hard, and the taste of salt.

But he reads the _no._ He reads the _No, Cas.  Wait._ And he freezes.  He stops spinning so fast it feels like he is whiplashed into a spin in the other direction.  The choir of his grace rises to a peak and then goes silent, murmuring in hesitant question.  He can’t scrape his nails down Dean’s back again if it is _no_ .  He is so confused.  He looks at his hand.  It would feel so good.  So, so good.  But he can’t.  No matter how good it feels.  No matter how much he wants it.  Not if it is _no_.    

His hand diverts from its path to Dean’s neck, and instead grips him on his other shoulder, holding him out, away from his own body with both hands.  

“No?”  he whispers, forlorn.   _He doesn’t want me.  Because I’ve failed him.  Because.  He won't keep me now.  He won't let me stay.  Made a deal with the devil, and now he won’t let me stay.  Of course he won’t._

Now the brilliant mirror shine images of Dean screaming his name are gone.  Now Raphael’s grace shows him dark alleys, lonely ones, hard ground damp and wet with rain.  Grey clouds and drinking coffee straight through sleepless nights.  These images are not new.  They are alleys and cold nights he has seen before, broken hearted, homeless.  Alone.  Failed.  Tossed away.  He feels it all like it has already happened.  Already happened again.  Dean has already sent him away from his home.  It has happened.  It will happen.  The choir of Raphael’s grace cries now, instead of sings.  It cries thick, hot, tears.  

The highs are so high, on this grace, and the lows are so low.  It is not only a drug, Castiel remembers, too late, it is a poison.  He is plummeting.  With his nails dug into Dean’s spine he was flying, so close to the sun, and now he is falling again, nose diving towards the darkest, blackest crack in the crust of the Earth.  He pulls back, from Dean, steps back and away, out of arm’s reach, so he won't be too tempted and touch him again, unwanted.  He has failed Dean, he knows, but he will not touch him if it is _No_.  Not that.  Never that.

Dean pants into the space Castiel gives him.  His body is still on fire, and the smoke is still spiraling up and clogging his throat.  He opens his mouth, but it still doesn’t work.  It's full of smoke. It’s not attached to his brain, and even if it were, his brain would be little help.  It is still shorting out.  It is still crazed for Castiel’s touch.  It wants his body to sway, forward, into Castiel’s space.  It wants to make what seemed inevitable inevitable again.  It wants him to ignore the little tiny _no_ , that is getting louder and clearer now that he can breathe air that isn’t so heavy with Cas’ scent.  

Castiel waits, hands at his sides.  He has to wait.  There’s nothing else he can do, if it’s not _yes._   

Finally, Dean grinds out, “You said you could get it back.  Right away.  If that’s what I wanted.”  He repeats what he has said before; his short circuited brain can manage that.  His eyes are teary when he looks at Cas.  “Were you lying?” _That touch was the lie._

Castiel opens his mouth to say “No,” because he hadn’t thought he was lying when he said that, to Dean, in the stars.  When he said that he could get his soul back, right away, if that's what Dean asked of him.  He would do anything for Dean, of course he wasn’t lying.  He thought.  But the ‘No’ doesn’t come out because now… now it feels like maybe it _was_ a lie, or at least it would be a lie now.  Maybe giving Raphael’s grace back is simple, but not easy, just as taking it in was.  

He doesn’t want to lie to Dean.  “I didn’t think I was lying,” he says, to the floor.  “But Dean,” he looks up, “then we came back here, and I laid you on our bed and you were so beautiful.  And I _had_ you, here, with me, or… or I thought… I thought I had you.  You were so close, your breath, your _body_ … And I wanted… I want…” he still wants, he still wants, and he whirls and tilts off-axis with it and takes a stumbling step back on ground that does not seem solid underneath his feet, anymore, as that want overtakes him, again.

He pauses, unsteady.  He doesn’t know how to continue, he doesn’t know how to explain the images in his mind, mirror bright and so sharp, and he doesn’t know how to explain how they make him feel, like a rubber band stretched until it has been drawn thin enough to snap, and he doesn’t know how to explain the grace surging under his skin, surging towards Dean.  All of that, and too, he doesn’t want to lie.  

“I feel… It’s so… I want to make you feel...”  He looks back down.  “But it's ‘No.’ Because I failed you.  My only charge, my love.  I failed you; I gave up my soul, I dealt with Crowley, I followed Lucifer’s star.  And so now it’s ‘no.’  I understand.  Of course.  I’m sorry.  I’m so sorry.”  He steps back again, two steps between him and Dean’s body now.

His voice is hollow as a sea cave.  How does he always fail Dean?  How does he always manage to make the wrong choice, even when it seems like there isn't any choice to make?

 _Oh no, angel_ .   _Oh no, no no.  That’s not what this is.  Angel, beautiful, mine, that’s not what this is.  Oh no no no, please._

Dean steps forward.  Intentionally, carefully, he closes the space between them.  He raises his hands and takes Castiel’s face in a gentle hold, finding his gaze.  He can’t let Castiel feel that this is rejection.  This is not rejection.  This is the opposite of rejection.  This is not “I don’t want you.”  This is “I want _all_ of you.”  All of you, everything.  Castiel has to understand that.  Dean has to make him understand.  

“Didn’t fail me, angel.”  His voice is rough, like he’s been choked.  Castiel tries to look away, but Dean doesn’t let him, even though he doesn't know, yet, what Castiel means by ‘followed Lucifer’s star,’ and he is afraid.  Even afraid, he holds Castiel’s gaze when he says: “You saved me.”

He repeats it again, because he wants Castiel to hear.  “You.  Saved.  Me.  It hurt so much, Cas… I hurt so much… but you saved me.  You didn’t have anything, and you saved me.  You came for me.  No one else...No one else ever… Only you.  Only you, Castiel.  Do you hear me?”

Castiel’s eyes are lined with tears, but he nods.   

Dean nods too, holding Castiel’s eyes.  “But please.  Just get it back.  I just can't… I can't focus, I can’t be _with_ you, I can't _anything_ , until you have it back. It's too important.  Please.”  

Castiel nods again..  He can't fail Dean again.  He _won't_.

“Hey,” A slow, warm, smile sneaks on to Dean’s face. “Hey,” he repeats, shyly, making sure he has Castiel’s attention.  He does.  

“When you get it back… you can still… have me.  Like that.  Like you wanted.”

Castiel's heart starts up again.  It had stopped, when Dean said _no_.  His heart had stopped and he hadn’t even noticed it.  But it starts up again now, an uneven thump in his chest.  Dean can't mean…

“I want that, too.  I’ve wanted it… God, Cas, I’ve always wanted it, like that, with you.  I dreamt about that the first night I met you, the first night you watched over me.  Every night after.”

Castiel regards Dean carefully.  So maybe it could be _yes_ , after all.

“You would… want… that?”

Dean only stares into his eyes, in answer.  Green flashing, pupils wide.  He tilts his chin down a fraction, and then back up.  

Cas looks at him critically, evaluating.  Does Dean know what he is offering?  Can he?  Dean’s eyes hold his back.  They do not waver.  They _challenge_ .  This mortal, almost swept away by the storm of grace, and now he steps into its reach again, and _challenges_.  

Castiel shivers.  Dean is strong.  He can face the storm and the boiling sea, and not be destroyed.  He can ride the waves and the winds, and revel in his mastery.  Castiel can see it in his eyes.  His hands twitch again at his sides.  He wants that, with Dean.  So much.  So, so much.  

But first. “I’ll get it back, Dean.  Right now.  For you.”  His voice is so earnest.    _Anything for you, Green Eyes.  Holy Father, anything._

“Is it…will it... what do you have to do?”   

“It’s simple.  I just need a knife.”

“A special knife, or--”

“No, any knife will do.”  

Dean calls the First Blade, immediately, and hands it, hilt first, to Castiel.  “Get it back.  For me.  Get it back now.”  

Another nod.  Yes.  “For you, Dean.”  And he makes the cut, shallow and short, just above his left wrist, on the other side of Raphael’s halo from the first cut, the cut that took his soul.  He whispers the Latin, just a few words, a simple incantation, Dean even mouths along.  

Then it seems like all the light and air in the room are funneled into Raphael’s halo in a single screaming _wush._  Castiel slumps forward, suddenly exhausted, all his weight colliding with Dean, who staggers back but holds him.  

The room is so dark, now.  His body is so heavy.  It's so hard to breathe.  The air is gone and he is suffocating.  He can’t even hold up his eyelids, they weigh a thousand pounds, they are made of lead.  His skin has turned to rock.  His blood is sludge and it moves so slow.  It will never reach his heart, which is made of iron, and hurts, hurts so much, in his chest.  “It hurts,” he cries out, weakly, into Dean’s shoulder, where his face is planted.    

“Cas? Cas!” Dean shouts, alarmed, not sure whether this is how this ritual is supposed to go.  “What hurts?  What’s happening?  You alright, angel?  You ok?  Talk to me, Cas.”

“Hurts, but it doesn’t matter.”

“Cas--”

“Doesn’t matter, ‘cause I got it back,” Castiel says with a weak smile, his nose planted in Dean's neck, collapsed against Dean’s body.  He can feel his love again, in his heart.  Yes, there it is.  It is warm, and it pulses all through him, taking the hurt away.  It makes him soft, where Raphael’s grace made him hard and sharp and merciless.  And it is _better_ .  Better than being able to do anything.  Better than being made of power.   _So much_ better.  “Got it back for you, Dean.  Green Eyes.  Beautiful.  Perfect.  Precious.” His smile gets wider, and he yawns.  “So tired.  Tired now.  Gonna sleep.” He nuzzles his face in against Dean's neck a little better.  Then his body tenses.  “You're not going to leave, while I'm sleeping, are you Green Eyes?  You wouldn't.  Wouldn't, I'd be so cold.  Wouldn't, would you?”

Dean strokes one hand into Castiel's hair, wraps the other around Castiel's waist.  Here he is.  Here’s his angel.  He’s back.  There’s no secret darkness tearing him up, now.  It’s such a relief.  To hold his angel against his chest again, to have him in his arms again, where he belongs.  Dean feels his heart rate drop, his blood pressure drop, his shoulders relax.  He eases against Castiel, shapes their bodies closer together, and kisses the top of Castiel's head.  “‘Course not, angel.  ‘Course not.”  He will be here.  Right here, with Castiel.  Until he wakes.  Always.  That is what he swore.  Always.

Castiel relaxes, his body melting into Dean, falling asleep right there, where they stand.  “OK.  ‘M your angel.  Gonna sleep.  Love you.  Love you, Dean.”

“I know,” Dean whispers into Castiel's hair, as Castiel sinks down into a heavy sleep.  “I know, angel.”

 

*****

 

 _Dean,_ it smells like _Dean,_ when Castiel wakes up.  Fall forest; amber and leaves.  

He opens his eyes, because he wants to see.  Freckles and flannel and green eyes.  But it's so dim, when he opens them, without grace, it is almost like he never opened them at all.  All he sees is shadows.  They are dark, and he is afraid.  He remembers this, from the Fall.

He is not cold, though, this time.  He is warm.  Dean is holding him pressed to his side, arm around his waist, middle finger tracing short lines absentmindedly over his ribs.  His head is rested on Dean's shoulder.  He breathes deep, Dean's body.  Leather.  Woodsmoke.

“You're holding me,” he says, and his voice is sleep rough.  He is a little surprised that Dean is here.  That he stayed, knowing…Knowing some of what Castiel did, to rescue him.  Deals, and souls.  Things that Dean does not like.  Things that have made him leave, have made him send Castiel away, before.  

He should not be surprised, he reprimands himself.  Didn’t Dean say he would stay, just before Castiel sank into sleep?  And isn’t Dean always true?   _Always true._

He wonders how long he was asleep.  He wonders what Dean did during that time.  Did Dean sleep, too?  Did he think about how he was going to kick Cas out, when he woke up? Did argue with himself, playing it over and over, trying to find a way to break it gently to Castiel, that he wasn’t wanted, that he was broken, that he made the wrong choice, the wrong fucking choice _again,_ and that Dean can’t trust him, just can’t, so he doesn't care where Castiel goes but he can't stay here?  Or did Dean just release his hurt and disappointment over, and over, at mental-Castiels, as they hung their heads silent, and cried?  And did it hurt Dean’s heart at all, to see those tears, or did he only feel glad, justified?  And was it not only hurt, and disappointment, that Dean felt; did he boil over into anger, that Cas made a deal with Crowley, traded his soul, bandied with demons, almost took Dean’s body, unwilling?  Did Dean smash his fists into hard stone walls in his mind while Castiel slept soft against his chest?  

But no, Dean is here.  Dean is here, and his hands are on Castiel’s body, holding it close, gentle hands.  Hands that feel comfortable, unhurried, like they are going to stay.

“‘Course, Cas,” Dean says, setting down the book he was reading.   _Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas._ It looks like he is about three quarters finished.  He doesn't sound angry.    

“How long was I--”

“Two days.  Man, you were _out.”_

Castiel's body clenches up, he starts to panic.   _Two days._ That's so long.

“I’ve been here the whole time,” Dean says, in response to Castiel’s tensing.  “I didn’t leave you Cas.  Said I wouldn’t.” _He didn't even consider it,_ Castiel realizes, in slow awe.   _He didn't even consider leaving me here, and going out, to the racks, or to find Crowley.  He just… Stayed with me._

Castiel relaxes.   _He stayed._  Dean continues, almost shyly, “I made cheeseburgers appear.” A brief pause.  “And a milk shake.  Thought maybe you'd be hungry, if you woke up.  But you didn't.  So I just ate ‘em.” He doesn't sound mad at all.  He only sounds like he is confessing a venal sin, about the cheeseburgers.   _Curious_.

Castiel smiles sadly, for a moment, remembering… before, when Dean brought him cheeseburgers, and watched him eat them with a wolf-hungry look on his face.  Hungry for Castiel.  But it fades; the smile, the memory.  That was before.  Before he dialed 666.  Before he read _The Fallen_.  He twines his fingers into Dean's, and stares down at where their hands join.  “You're holding me,” he repeats.  “You're not angry?  You must be.  After what I--”

Dean interrupts him, but doesn't let go of his hand.  “You sure you're ready to talk about that, baby?” He actually sounds concerned.  Like if Cas says ‘No,’ Dean will just hold his hand and let him go back to sleep, curled against his chest.  Castiel thinks about it; about whether he is ready, about whether he _should_ just go back to sleep, about how he will explain.  He is still exhausted.  His body still feels so heavy.  And he is afraid.  Of being powerless again.  Of being powerless when --if -- Dean sends him from his side.

But he does not think he will not be able to sleep again, now, with this sword at his throat, the sword he has forged of his bad actions.  He will not be able to sleep, not knowing whether Dean will slash it in and make the killing blow, and send him away.  No matter how weak he is in body, no matter how tired.

He decides he will tell Dean everything.  Die on that sword or let Dean put it away.  Even if Dean doesn't like what he hears, even if it makes Dean tell him to leave.  Castiel will stand tall and be truthful, for Dean, even if it is for the last time.

“I was so cold, when you left,” he begins.  That is the start of it.  That was the first foot on the path that ended with his angel eyes piercing through Dean in the vacuum of space.  He was _so_ cold.  “And I was scared.”

Dean looks away.  “I'm sorry, Cas,” He says slowly, chewing on his words.  “Didn't wanna leave you, you've gotta know that.  I would never have, when you were so sick, like that, I would never… I swore, and I should've--” His voice is rough, like it is about to break.  

Castiel can't bear it, Dean's sadness, his regret for a separation that was in no way his fault.  Always taking on burdens that are not his to take, his love.  Castiel will relieve him of this one.  Or he will try.  

“Oh Dean, I know.  I know.” Castiel kisses their joined hands.  “I know.  I know you would never, oh not you, my shield, my hero, my always true.  I know.  I wasn’t angry, or not at you.  But I was cold, and afraid.”  He shivers, just remembering.

Dean whimpers, in sadness, and opens his mouth, probably to apologize again, but Castiel continues.  “I didn't know what to do.  There are so many enemies, here, and I was so powerless.” Dean’s head is hanging, and a tear drops down from his face, to wet his jeans.

“I'm so sorry, angel.  I promised you ‘Always’ and then I… I'm so sorry.” Dean's voice is broken now, and cracked.  He couldn't even stay.  Just stay, with Castiel, when he swore, he _swore._ All he had to do was _not leave_ , and he couldn’t even manage that. _Stupid, useless,_ he twists red hot words into himself, hurting.  John's voice, not Cain's.  Cain laughs though.  A cruel laugh.  Too many voices in his head, and none of them kind.  And Castiel about to add to them:  Dean left him and he was so cold.

Castiel's face crumples, seeing the tears drip from Dean's eyes, the hurt in his face, hearing his voice break.  He breathes deep.  He has to be brave, to tell this.  Dean may cry more, or yell, or go completely silent.  This will be hard.  Castiel has to be brave.  As brave as when he sliced Gabriel’s sword through the veils and led the demon charge.  More so, because then he could only have been killed.  Now, his heart can be broken.

“I was cold, and I was so scared.”  Yes.  That is the right start, though another tear rolls down Dean's cheek when he says it.

Castiel tells Dean:  “I thought you would come right back to me.  I counted the seconds:  nine hundred seconds to Earth, nine hundred back. I counted them twice, to be sure.  300 seconds to argue with Sam.  300 and 300 again.  And you didn't come back, but that was all I could do, count, I was so afraid, so I didn’t stop, I counted your name a million times.  I counted it until it was the sound of the beat of my heart.”

And “Cas,” Dean cries, and squeezes Castiel's hand tighter, and another tear drops down onto his jeans, joining the others, widening the damp spot.  

Castiel is brave, though Dean cries.  He tells Dean:  “And when you were written in the walls of my heart, and my mind was my own again, I counted my assets, and I had none.  And I counted my allies, and I had none.  So I prayed to Gabriel for intercession.”

And, “I thought he was dead,” Dean says, and wipes the tears gathered on his reddened lids with a blunt thumb before they can fall.

Cas shakes his head, and he tells Dean: “He is not dead.  He lives.  It was his armor that I wore, when I came for you.  His sword, that pierced the veils.”  But that is getting ahead, of the story.

“He heard my prayer.  He heard how I could not go on without you,” another whimper from Dean,  “and he could not bear it, he could not bear my hurt, though he has many enemies, and he could not appear to me, and had to remain hidden.  So instead he worked in your brother's heart.  He worked to convince Sam to call me.  And when Sam called, and I heard your voice… It melted over me like honey, it was warm and golden and it _healed_ .  And I was warm again.  Your voice.  It made me strong.  It made me ready.  To do _anything._ Do you understand, Dean?   _Anything._  That is what Gabriel did for me. _”_

And Dean holds their joined hands up to his mouth and kisses Castiel's fingers.  “Yeah, baby, I understand.” He does.  He hates it, wishes he didn't know what it feels like, that desperation, that willingness to do anything, anything at all, but he does.  For Castiel, he does.  

Cas tells Dean:  “I did not have any allies.  I did not have any assets.  So I called Crowley.  It was so easy.  666.”  

“Cas --”

“I didn't give him what he asked for, at first, though I think I did give him exactly what he wanted.”

“What did he ask for?  What did you give him?”

Castiel looks over at Dean, looks up from his own lap for the first time in this telling.  “He asked for a kiss.”

Dean's face falls.  “Cas, you could have…you _should_ have.  I would have understood, Crowley's a snake, but even… Even _that_ is better than your _soul._ I would have understood-- _”_

Cas shakes his head.  No, Dean does not understand. _“_ Not a kiss from me.”

Dean looks puzzled.  “Then… Who?”

“From you, Dean.  From you.  He wanted…” Castiel has trouble even saying it.  “He wanted to _taste_ you.  I should have killed him.”

“Woah, Cas --”

“But instead I made a deal with him.” Castiel doesn't wait to hear whether Dean would have let Crowley kiss him, because both answers are daggers in his heart.   _Yes,_ and it means Dean is not all his, only his, entirely.   _No,_ and it means Dean would rather Cas give up his soul than know the taste of Crowley's serpent lips.

Cas tells Dean:  “Instead I gave him what he asked for next.  A halo.  I traded him _Ion,_ the least of my brothers, for free access to the armory, and the library.”  

And Dean, still stumbling over whether he would have kissed Crowley, whether he should have, just trying to keep up, says “He wanted a halo?  Why?”

Cas tells Dean:  “He saw them, on your nightstand.  He saw them, and I think he looked them up, in the library, because there's a book there.” Castiel pauses.   _Brave.  Truthful.  That is what you are for Dean.  That is how you don't fail him, now.  Dean's angel is brave, and truthful._ He looks Dean in the eyes, when he continues.  He is brave. “Lucifer.  Lucifer found a way, to use the grace, in a dead angel's halo.  The ritual you saw me do to get my soul back… Lucifer.” Castiel looks back down in his lap.

And Dean says “Son of a bitch,” and Castiel isn't sure whether Dean means him or Lucifer.  And he is brave, but he isn’t brave enough to ask.

So Cas tells Dean:  “I read Lucifer's book.  I read every word.” Tears are coming to Castiel's eyes now, too, matching Dean's.  “I read what he… What he did to my brothers, what he, what I...” he sobs, and tilts over, but Dean catches him.  Dean catches him with a strong arm and holds him tight.  

It makes it easier and harder to continue, that hold.  Easier because Dean is strong, Dean is warm, Dean _has him._ Harder, because _what if Dean lets go?_

But Castiel is brave.  Castiel tells Dean:  “I read what Lucifer did.  I learned that I could have Raphael’s power, all of it, if I would give up my soul.  And it was a terrible price, but I knew I was going to do it, before I even knew how, for you, Dean.  For you.”

And Dean sighs.  “Cas.  Cas.  You fucking pure fucking hearted son of a bitch.  My fucking angel.  You didn't have to --”

Castiel sobs, and fists Dean's shirt in both hands.  “But I DID, Dean, I did have to.  I couldn't… I couldn't just cry and count to a million again and wait for you to come back to me, pathetic and broken and ruined.  I had to be better, than that.  You deserve better, than that.  You deserve….” _someone who makes much better choices, than me.  “..._ That is not what I want to be for you.  That sad, ruined...   _That_ is what I _couldn't_ do.   _That_ is the _only thing_ I _couldn't_ do.  I had to be _better._ I had to be your angel again.  Please, understand, I _had to_.”  

“Cas,” Dean sighs again, and strokes Castiel's back.  It hurts his heart, to see Castiel crying, begging him to understand, to hear how hard it was, when Dean _left_ him, cold and alone.  And he doesn't like what Castiel did, he doesn't like it at all, but his heart melts for the tears in Castiel's eyes.  And he knows, he knows, that if he were in Castiel's place, he would have done the same goddamned thing.  Doesn't he wear the Mark of Cain?  Doesn't he have black eyes?  Didn’t he kill Death?  He understands what it means, to do _Anything_.  And for Cas…. No.  There is nothing he wouldn't do, for Cas.  He would have made this trade, if Cas had been the one taken, and he the one left powerless in the Pit.  He would have kissed Crowley.  He would have traded his revnant soul, poor as it is, for far less, to save Castiel.  For a sword.  For a spell.  For a bucket of salt and a bar of iron.  He knows it's true.  It would be a lie to deny it.  And though much has happened in this room since he and Castiel have returned from the stars, devastation of bodies and whispering of secrets, he and Castiel are not lying.  Not to each other.  Not any more.  

His voice is small, when he says.  “Always my angel, Cas.” Castiel’s eyes snap to his. “I swore it.   _Always.”_

He pauses, until Castiel nods surprised understanding, at him.  It is a long pause.   _He didn’t expect me to forgive him.  Jesus.  He thought…_ He clutches Castiel closer to his chest.   _How could he think that?_

 _Because you threw him out of his home_ , Cain answers, cruelly, in Dean’s mind.   _Because you made him homeless.  Because you trapped him in a ring of fire.  Because you don’t love him as well as you should.  Because you can’t.  You don't know how. You couldn't even STAY._

Cain is heartless, Cain is cruel, and Dean believes him.  And, believing, he also believes that there are no words that he can say to Castiel that will make Cain’s accusations untrue.  So he looks into Castiel’s eyes, and holds them, tilts his head, and kisses him, just a single press of his lips on Castiel’s mouth.  That kiss is not a lie.  That kiss is gentle, it loves, it forgives, it is the truth.  There is no mistaking it.  Castiel looks at him with awed eyes, when he pulls back.  Castiel looks at him with eyes that are blue, again.  

“Cas. Castiel.  I-- My angel.  I swore to you Always, Cas.  I _swore it_.  Ok?”

Castiel nods.

Dean swallows, and continues.  “I understand.  I understand, OK?  I don’t like it, but I understand.  I… I would do... that, what you did, the same, for you.  More.  Anything.”  He swallows again.  “Just don't… Just don't get to thinking like your soul doesn't mean anything? Ok?  That it’s cool for you to just trade it in whenever.  It means a lot. To me.  OK?  It’s _important._ ”

Castiel tilts his head and looks at Dean with serious eyes.  “OK, Dean.”   _How can he love me so much?  How can he love me so well?_ Castiel thinks, not knowing what Cain has accused Dean of, what lies Dean has accepted as truth.  The Host didn't know how to love him like this, though they should have been made of love, and forgiveness.  But they didn't love him.  They didn't forgive him.  They wouldn't have forgiven him this.  They would have _punished._

Dean continues.  “And don't get to thinking I want you to suit up in Gabe’s magic armor every time the going gets rough.  It's too dangerous.  You're not power, to me.  You're not what you can do for me, who you can kill.  You're my angel.  You're my heart.  Always will be, and I gotta know you're safe.  Always gotta.  That's priority one.  That's what matters most.  You understand, Cas?  Your heart is my heart, and mine can't beat without it.  That’s what I need _you_ to understand.  Please.” _How do I love you?  How can I love you better?_

Cas nods slowly, head still tilted.  This is not how he thought this was going to go.  Not at all.  This is not… This is so much better than he deserves.  Even if he is the Father’s favorite.  Dean’s love, Dean’s forgiveness, unconditional, forever… Even for the Father’s favorite, this is so, so much more than he deserves.

He won’t squander it.

“I… Yes.  I do.  I understand.  Every beat of my heart, kept safe, for you.  Always.”

Dean nods and Castiel’s heart releases its sharp clench, and then overflows.  Dean is going to keep him.  Dean is really going to keep him, forever. Oh, the joy.  “I'll be your heart, forever.” He is eager to offer it up.  He can't wait, to offer it up.   “A million million beats, and it will still beat ‘Dean.’”

Dean blushes, and kisses the top of Castiel's head, and pulls him in closer.  “OK, angel.  OK.”

 

*****

 

Castiel lays against Dean’s chest, curled in Dean’s lap, and listens to the beat of Dean’s heart.  Dean has forgiven him, and his heart beats soft against Castiel’s ear.   _Always.  Anything.  Forever.  Angel_ .  Even _Love._  It beats in the silence that has fallen now that Castiel's telling is done and there are no secrets left between them; it beats in the contented quiet of their room; it beats in forgiveness.  It beats, and Castiel listens.  It makes him smile.  It makes him hum along:   _Ba-dump, Ba-dump.  Mmmmmmm._ Dean smiles when he hears it, Castiel’s humming, and ruffles his hair.

Their bed is so soft, and it smells like them, Dean and Castiel, forest and mountain stream.  Dean’s body is so warm against Castiel’s.  Castiel is not cold now.  Not any more.  His skin is warm, and it hums, too.  His skin hums, his heart, his fingertips:  every cell hums “Dean.”  

Dean’s arms are loose around his back.  They hold Castiel, they cradle him, they stand between him and harm. Dean’s breath is in his ear.   _I’m ok,_ it says. _I’m here with you._

It’s so easy.  This love.  Castiel was made to be held by these arms, and he fits so well within them.  This is the heart he was created to protect, always.  This is his charge.  Protect this heart.  Protect it the best you know how.  Protect it from enemies, and from breaking. Protect it with _everything._

This is _his_ heart.  He is responsible for it.  And it beats for _him._     

He leans back, and brushes his fingers over it, over Dean’s black tshirt. He brushes all four of them there, in a loose comb.  He tugs at the shirt’s hem.  “Can I feel you?” He whispers.  “Can I touch?”  The dim light in their room seems so bright, in his dilated eyes.  How could he have ever thought it was dark, in here?  

Will Dean answer him ‘Yes’, this time?  It has to be ‘Yes’, now, he thinks.  It has to be, Dean’s body is calling to him, Dean’s breath is on his skin, Dean’s skin is whispering his name.  Dean’s skin is whispering ‘Yes.’  Dean’s heart is beating ‘Yes.’  

Dean swallows.  “‘Course, Cas,” he says, and reaches, cross-armed, to pull his shirt over his head.  He lets his flannel go with it.  Goosebumps rise on his chest.  His mouth parts open.  The lids of his eyes slip down, heavy, and and he looks at Cas, offering. He wants Castiel to _touch._ He wants Castiel’s hands, those nimble hands, those long fingers, strong slim, he wants them on his body.  Touching him, everywhere, pressing, stroking, while Castiel’s eyes follow.  

 _Skin,_ Castiel sees, thinks, mouth watering, tongue thick, lips gone numb.   _And I can touch._ He is so greedy for it.  He is so thirsty for it.  How many million heart beats have gone by, since Dean’s body was under his hands?  Too many.  And Dean is so beautiful.  Freckled and golden, lean and strong.  Long eyelashes, pink lips.  A spare trace of coarse, ginger hair leading down, down.  Castiel's lips part wetly, and his tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth.   _Dean._

His fingers twitch, and start to comb over Dean's chest again.  Soft skin, soft and warm and fragrant like the forest, and the deep, loamy, earth there.  The earth that grows.  The earth that all life rises up from in the sunlight.  Castiel’s heart beats again.   _Dean._

And Dean's eyes, heavy lidded, closing, closed.  Trusting Castiel to touch him.  Trusting Castiel under his wicked, iron, guard.  Castiel swallows, thickly, and he feels his cock harden in a slow rush.   _Touching Dean's skin, oh._ This is a great privilege.  He feels it. This is a sacrament.  He will be dutiful.  He will be sincere.  He will work hard, to be worthy of this privilege.  His worship will be thoughtful, and disciplined, when his hands find Dean's body.  

He ranges his fingers up, behind Dean's ear, down Dean's neck, to meet his anti-possession tattoo, old but still dark, and sharp.  His fingers range up and down and his forehead draws up in concentration, he starts to hum a new cadence.  Touching, thinking.  Feeling this soft, warm, golden body.  Thinking about how to protect it.  That is his duty, that is his charge.  That is why he was made, by the Father.  That is why he was sent, in the siege.  That is why he was set to watch, over Earth.  This is his reason, his only reason.   _Protect.  Love._

Dean rests his head back against their headboard as Castiel touches him, and sighs.  It feels good, so good, Cas in his lap, narrow hips held under broad, veined, hands, just touching, holding.  It's not the thunderclap that shook them before, it's not the avalanche, the forest fire, racing through him, setting his brain on fire and making his fingers numb.  It's not that, but it feels so good.  So easy.  So _right._ It feels like they could stay sitting this way, just this way, forever.  It feels like nothing else matters.  The calamity that always surrounds them is fading away to a low, dim, buzz.  Sam’s anger, the busted bunker, the demons let loose there:  unimportant.  Far away, when Dean's thumbs test the edge of Castiel's hip bones and feel the skin shift over them.  

This is one way, that Dean could love Castiel, Dean realizes.  This is one way that he knows, that would be right.  If he could stay, just stay, like this.  He will try.  He will try to love his angel as well as he can.  He will try to stay with him.   _Forever._

 _“_ I will mark you here,” Castiel says, suddenly, breaking the long silence that has built up between them.  His voice is certain, strong.  His first two fingers rest behind Dean's left ear.

He slides them down, a touch that kisses Dean's skin, down that same path he's been tracing, down Dean's neck, to his left collarbone.  “And here and here, this is where I will mark you.”

Dean's dick twitches, and he feels Castiel’s hardness answering against him. Castiel is so certain. He talks like it has already happened.  “What do you mean, Cas?” Dean asks, quietly.  How will Castiel mark him?  With ownership?  Protection?  Will it be in the language of the angels?  Will others know, when they look at him, that he has been claimed by an angel?  By _this_ angel, by Castiel?  

 _Yes_ .  Dean hardens.   _Yes, my Castiel. Let me be yours._  His eyes are liquid and hopeful, where they meet Castiel’s.  “How you gonna mark me?”     

“So no one can take you away from me again,” Castiel replies, voice still certain as the base of a mountain, fingers still tracing that same path, eyes following but distant, like he can already see how the marks he will make will look on Dean’s exposed skin.  “Ever.”

Dean swallows.

“I will ward you from humans, from stranger and brother.  I will ward you from angels and demons and their masters.  I will ward you from the old gods, and the new; their worshippers and their messengers.  I will ward you from the sun, and the sea, and the night sky.  There is no one, there is no power, that will be able to call your name, and command you.  There will be no one that can take you, from me.”

A short moan escapes from Dean’s mouth.  No one will have him, but Castiel.  “Yes, angel,” he assents.   _Yes_ , it is _Yes_.  So he will never have to see that fear in Castiel’s eyes again, as he some asshole chants and he is yanked into the black.  So he will never feel Castiel’s desperate hands sinking through his fading body, unable to hold on.  So he will never have to hear Castiel begging “Dean, don’t leave me,” “No, Dean, don’t go.”  He will stay.  He will just stay.  That is the first way, to love Castiel.

“You want it’, Castiel says darkly, responding to Dean’s moan, circling his hips against Dean’s, hardness against hardness.  “You want me to mark you.  You want everyone to see.  You want everyone to know.  That you’re mine.”  

No use denying it.  Castiel can feel the evidence of how much Dean wants it, grinding up against him, he can see it in the black depths of his dilated eyes.  He can hear it, the air on Dean's breath when he pants “Yes, angel,” and moves against Castiel, moves in rhythm, hands rising and falling on hips that rise and fall, too. “Yes.”

Castiel braces his arms on either side of Dean’s head, palms flat on their headboard.  He drops his face and rides against Dean’s hardness, eyes closed, focused completely on the feeling.  He’s glad he waited, until it was _Yes_.  Even if now it is the gentle rocking of a boat against a lake’s pier, instead of the storm that crushes it on the water.

Dean’s hands slide down Castiel's hips, down his thighs, and then back up again, bunching up his white garment.  Castiel is naked, beneath, hard and leaking.  He groans when his cock rubs up against the rough denim of Dean’s jeans, instead of the soft cotton of his angel’s robe.  He groans and grinds down harder.  “Dean, yes.”  

Castiel’s hands leave the headboard, and his arms wrap tight around Dean’s neck.  He kisses the top of Dean’s ear, mouth wide and gaping, he kisses the side of Dean’s head with mouth wet and open, uncoordinated and hungry.  Dean’s hair is soft on his lips, soft on his tongue, and it tastes like honey.  He buries his eyes in Dean’s shoulder, and rocks against him, _grinds_ his cock against him.  “Dean, you feel so good.”  Breathless. “You always feel so good,” voice broken.

“Cas,” Dean gasps back, “Cas,” and one of his hands leaves Castiel’s thighs to unbutton his jeans, to try to get his cock out.  He can’t quite manage it one handed with Castiel’s weight on him, Castiel’s arms wrapped around him, his brain fuzzed out as Castiel keeps rocking, rocking, rocking his cock against Dean’s bare stomach, leaving a cool wet trace with every rock forward.  “Cas, _more_ ,” he tries, the best he can, to explain what he needs.   _Needs._

Castiel whines.  He wants more, too, he wants to feel Dean’s entire body naked beneath him, but this feels so _good_ , Dean’s stomach is hard and soft against his cock and the denim of his jeans is so rough and he smells so good, and Castiel’s arms fit perfectly around his neck, and Cas’ rhythm is so easy, and sweet, and he’s getting so close, so hot, and--

“Cas, more, _please_ ,” Dean repeats, desperation leaking into his voice.   _“_ Please,”

\--and it feels so good, but Castiel wants to make it good for Dean too.  On his next rock forward, he rises up to his knees, and pulls his angel’s garment off over his head.  He pauses there, for a moment, looming over Dean, naked, eyes hungry, flashing.  

Dean stares back, long lashes over heavy lids, mouth parted.   _Please,_ his eyes say.   _Please, angel.  Yes._

Castiel does not break their stare as he reaches out and tugs Dean’s open jeans down, dismounting Dean with one leg, just for one moment, just for long enough to pull them off.  Their eyes already fucking each other, hot and intense, though their bodies are barely touching for that moment.

The moment  of anticipation builds, like a wave.  Roaring, heavy, ready to crash down and crush.  Castiel lets himself rise with the moment, lets it carry him higher, instead of giving in to its gravity.  It will be worth the wait to ride higher before he crashes down.  So worth it.  Like it was worth it to wait for _yes._

He leans back, on his heels, and holds Dean's gaze.  His eyes devour.  His tongue, his lips, his cock, they are all so swollen, they are buzzing, they are numb with desire, they are covered with gold and gleaming.  He wonders, if he touches his fingers to his gleaming mouth, if they will come away gold.  If his and Dean's skins will turn to gold, when they touch.  He would like to be gold.  Like the flecks in Dean's eyes.  Dean's golden angel. _Yes._ He would burn, every second, forever, to be covered in Dean like that, Dean’s heat, Dean’s desire.  He would burn, but he would shine so bright.  No one would be able to look at him.  No one but Dean.

“Oh Dean,” Castiel says, leaned back on his heels, rising up on the wave. “Oh.  So beautiful.  So golden.  Dean.  My charge.”  He lets his fingertips touch, just his fingertips, circles and signs over Dean’s chest.  The wards that will protect him. The wards that will keep him safe.

Dean’s hands come up, and interlace with Castiel’s.  He lowers them to his sides, resting lightly against the blankets.  He casts his eyes away, down, towards the bed.  “Need you, Cas,” he whispers.  “Please.” The wave has risen high enough for Dean, and now he wants it to break over him, crash over him, into him, cover him with its weight.

It’s _Please_ .  It’s _Yes_.  “Anything, Dean.  Anything,” Castiel says, ready to break with the wave, too, ready to smash on the rocks into a million pieces.  He raises Dean’s legs up over his shoulders, and bends him in half so he can find Dean with his mouth.

Now he will be inside Dean, inside his body.  It will be his tongue first.  It is.  Lapping, long strokes, wet strokes.  Tasting.  Tasting every flavor.  Face and mouth and Dean’s thighs all wet and covered with Castiel’s saliva, Dean's scent.

 _Mmmmmm_ he hums, and he presses, and his tongue is inside, long and slick, and Dean shifts his weight, one leg to another on Castiel's shoulders, back rolling on the bed, left to right.  “Feels good Cas.  Don't stop.  Please.”

Castiel doesn't stop.  The wave is crashing now, it _can't_ be stopped.  It can only roar.

His fingers are inside, slick with power, slick with _sin,_ which abides in Hell and of which Dean is the Master.  Slick and _hot,_ and they work inside Dean, and he pants, “Cas.  Castiel,” and his hands first in Cas’ hair.  

His cock is inside.  Thick and veined and throbbing, his cock is inside Dean.  He can't breathe.    

Dean cries out, a long, animal, “ohhhhh”.  His fingernails scrape down Cas’ knees, leaving raised, red, marks.  The Mark of Cain flares, hot on his arm.  Cain starts to say something, in the flare, but it is drowned out in shrieking white noise.  

Castiel doesn't move.  Dean looks up at him, eyes pleading.  His angel, made of marble, sculpted, perfect, beautiful, inside of him, splitting him apart so wide it hurts, hurts so good.  “Cas, please,” He begs, breathless and exhausted from just hanging on.  It's begging now, he is begging, for Castiel to move inside him.  Quicksilver and sapphire and the memory of wings that flashed in the lightning.  He can almost see them now, their shadows. “Please.”

Castiel doesn't move.  He can't move.  He can't talk, to tell Dean why not.  He can't _breathe._ His cock is inside Dean, and it feels… It _feels._ He thinks he's going to die.  He wishes he still had Raphael’s grace inside him, to help him weather this.  He cannot bear it, only a mortal, with a weak, mortal heart.  A heart that is too weak for this, too weak by far.  It will stop.  And then he will still not move.  He will die like this.   

A single tear flows down from one eye.

And still Dean looks up at him, his angel, perfect body, lean and strong, hair wild and dark, eyes crystal blue and rimmed with tears, and he is like a sculpture, so beautiful, so still; he should be in a museum, people should come from all over the Earth for thousands of years to see this beauty.  He wonders if they already have, if there is a painting of Castiel somewhere, armored, fierce, gleaming like he was when he came for Dean; if it hangs on a marble wall.  He wonders if people kneel before it, and pray, and cry.  He would.  He has to, right now.  Pray, and cry, and _beg_ for this angel to give him what he wants, what he needs.  

“Cas, Castiel, angel, _please._ Please fuck me.   _Please._ It… I need…”

Another tear drips from Castiel's eye.  Dean is _begging_ him, but he _can't,_ he just _can't,_ he can't move, he can't pull back from this, not an inch.  His hands grip Dean's knees on his shoulders and he can feel the bone underneath the skin.

Dean gasps from the hard touch, shudders, and his body vibrates around Castiel.  Castiel whines, high and breathy.  He can't pull out, pull back, but maybe…

He grinds his dick into Dean, harder, deeper.  His eyes are blackened with hard lust and he grinds in, in, circling, rubbing the end of his cock against the inside of Dean.

“Cas,” Dean screams, hands flying up to thread into his own hair, eyes shut tight, lost, hopeless, speared on the end of Cas’ thick cock.  He pushes his body back against Castiel, who holds him steady as a sea wall, and circles in again, harder, deeper, dirtier.  “Oh Jesus, Cas.”

“Can I come inside of you, Dean?” Castiel asks as he continues to circle, and grind.  Breathless.  He wants to mark Dean there, too.  Inside of him,  inside his body.  Painted white with Castiel's come.  Over, and over, and over.

“Yes, Cas, fuck, yes, please, want you to, want you to fuck me good, yes, please, _please.”_

 _“_ OK, Dean,” Cas says, leaning forward to stroke Dean’s his hair, his hands where they clench.  “Ssshhhhhh.  It's OK.  I'm going to take care of you.” and finally he can move, he does move, he latches his teeth to Dean’s neck, bites in deep, and fucks him _hard,_ each thrust met with a short, high, whine from Dean, each thrust slamming Dean's shoulders up into the headboard with bruising force.

Dean's hands work free of his own hair and clutch into Castiel's, holding on tight, two handfuls of soft, dark hair sprouting between his fingers,  “Cas, yes, Cas, please, oh, Cas, fuck,” Dean whines every time the head of Cas’ cock slams home again and rubs up inside him.  He has _never_ been fucked like this.  Never by someone so strong, never by someone that loved him this much.  Never by someone who touched him like he was precious as blown glass but fucked him like he was unbreakable.  Never by a cock so wide and thick and hard that he could feel it in his _teeth,_ never by an angel with eyes so blue they could freeze the melted ice caps again.  

Never but in his dreams of Castiel.  Blue eyed angel.  He knew.  He knew it would be like this.  

Somehow he knew.  He knew that Cas would fuck him _perfect_ .  That Cas would give him everything he needs, would _know_ everything he needs.  Because Cas always knows.  Cas has always known him.  And he has never _really_ begged during sex before, not for real, but now he begs _please, God, Cas,_ like he is begging for his life, like he will _die_ if Cas doesn't fuck him longer, harder, like he will _die_ if he doesn't come on Castiel's cock.

And, “Yes, Dean,” Castiel obliges simply, “Yes, anything,” and holds Dean's face with one hand, fingers around Dean's ears and thumb hooked in Dean's mouth.  And he _fucks him_ , so serious, like it is why he was put on this earth, like it is duty, his quest, his holy mission.  This is not the Castiel from before, the one that was wild, crackling with grace he could barely contain.  This Castiel is in control of every movement, every breath.  He is in control of the way he moves in Dean and, it feels, even the way Dean responds to those movements.  

“Wish I could get your cock in my mouth, Dean,” he says, completely in earnest, breath even and controlled even while Dean is writhing and crying, sweating and leaking underneath him.  “God, I wish… it looks so good.  I wish… another time, I promise you,” and Dean cries out  “Yes, Cas, Please,” and Castiel can’t get his mouth on Dean’s cock in this position, but he takes it in his free hand, his other still large and wide on Dean’s face.  He takes Dean’s cock in his hand and strokes it, once, like he is experimenting, finding out how it feels, how Dean will react.  

Dean reacts by arching his back off the bed, and crying out.  “Cas, oh God, Cas.  Please.”  

Cas’ mouth twitches up, just the smallest amount, into a smile.  It doesn’t reach his lust-black eyes.  It doesn’t make his thrusting into Dean any softer.  

He strokes it again, and Dean cries out again.  “Cas, you can’t, you have to, I’m going to, I’m so--”

“It’s OK, Dean,” he soothes, into Dean’s incoherent mumbling.  “It’s OK.  I’ve got you.  I’m going to take care of you.  You can come.  Can you come, for me?” And he strokes one more time, thumb caressing the head, wrist twisting, like he has seen Dean do to himself the times that he has watched.  The times that he has watched in fascination, in lust, in shame.  “Can you come, for me, Dean?”  

“Cas,” Dean cries, and yes, he comes.  He comes all over Castiel’s hand, Castiel’s chest, even Castiel’s neck.  He comes like a steam train, screaming, roaring, heavy and hard and busting through town on white hot metal.  He comes and he clenches around Castiel’s throbbing cock, and Castiel comes too, deep inside of him.  Castiel gets what he wanted.  He gets to come inside of Dean, mark him up on the inside, and he keeps thrusting into it through their orgasm, his cock squelching in it, rubbing it in, rubbing it deep.  

His eyes flash once, and his wings, his true wings, black, flicker in and out of shadow once.  Dean doesn’t notice, his eyes are rolled back in his head and he cannot breathe.  Castiel doesn’t notice, he doesn’t feel anything but Dean around him, Dean shaking, Dean trembling on his cock.  Neither of them notice.  Neither of them wonder what it means.

Cas only collapses on top of Dean, finally letting Dean’s legs drop onto the bed, finally letting go of Dean’s face.  Cas only pants out, “So good for me Dean.  So good,” and Dean whimpers back.  Cas only just tries to breathe, and keep tracing signs on Dean’s sensitive skin with a single finger, and gather Dean’s pliant form into his arms.  Dean only clutches weakly at Castiel’s back.  Dean only melts into him and breathes, “Cas.”

Dean is so spent, so pliable; Castiel thinks he will fall asleep immediately.  He makes sure Dean is comfortable in his arms.  He buries his face in Dean’s hair.  He readies himself, to watch over his charge in sleep.

But Dean does not rest, not right away.  He speaks.

“Did they make art, of you,” Dean asks into Castiel’s shoulder, sleepy, sated.

Castiel leans back and tilts his head, narrows his eyes.  “What do you mean, Dean?”

Dean waves his hands, weakly, helplessly.  “You know, those Renaissance guys in Italy or whatever, painting all the angels.  Did they paint you? Did they sculpt you?” Images drift through Dean's mind.  Castiel naked, or with just a scrap of pink cloth wrapped around him.  Carrying a spear, a sword.  Fighting a dragon, a snake a devil.  Red flames licking around him, or twisting through clouds in a blue sky.  In his armor.  With a cape, with a shield.  With a halo.  Castiel in marble, in ivory, in oils that shine.

Oh.  Castiel understands.  “They did.  They… Why?”  They painted him, and Gabriel, all his brothers.  

Dean grabs Castiel’s hand and brings it to his mouth, kisses it.  “Just… Wonderin’.  Just… You're so beautiful, Cas.  Should be art, of you.  Should be... ”  He seems to drift off, in the middle of this, imagining it.  Maybe he is imagining Castiel resting with him on a fluffy cloud, playing to him with his harp.  He’s sure Castiel’s voice would be so sweet, so pure, if he sang.   

Cas’ hand is still clasped up against Dean’s mouth, and he feels Dean’s warm breath evening out as it puffs over, into sleep.  

Cas lets Dean keep his hand, and pets his hair with his free one, and thinks of the paintings of himself that were destroyed in Athens, in Dresden, in Milan.  He never mourned them, until now.  Was never sorry that they were lost.

Now he is sorry.  Because Dean thinks he is beautiful.  “I love you, Dean,” he whispers, though Dean doesn’t hear.  “I love you,” he whispers, and holds his charge tight, and guards him in his sleep.

 

*****

 

Dean dreams of lightning.

And black wings.

Dean dreams of eyes that flash and lightning strikes that come before the thunder.  He dreams of night air that crackles and purple skies.  He dreams of stars.

He does not dream about fire.  He does not dream about the Pit.

When the rain falls, it is cool on his fevered skin.  

He dreams of lightning.     

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One hundred and fifty thousand words!
> 
> I like this chapter a lot. A LOT. I hope you do too. 
> 
>  
> 
> <3 <3 <3
> 
> On Tumblr, I am brainheartpizza (https://www.tumblr.com/blog/brainheartpizza). I post unedited excerpts between AO3 updates!


	14. Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A flutter of wings, and he descended from Heaven. 
> 
> And there was Dean. He was raking leaves. He was wearing jeans and a tshirt and a flannel and a jacket.

_Thirty notes in the mailbox_  
_Will tell you that I’m coming home_  
_And I think I’m gonna stick around_  
_For awhile so you’re not alone_

  
\--Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground, The White Stripes  
  
\---2011, after the defeat of Lucifer---

Castiel felt Dean’s… _longing._   

Like a prayer.

He ignored it, at first.  He thought:  maybe Dean’s longing for him was all caught up in, undifferentiable from, his longing for his brother, who had saved the world and been swallowed up by the earth.  It was only longing for Sam to be able to see him, see that he finally had the life they had said that they wanted.  Castiel was sure. Dean had a home, now, a family.  A child to take care of and take care of _right,_ not out of necessity, not by shoplifting and turning tricks and going hungry.  A child to smile at, and teach to be a man.  A child who didn't have to be afraid of what was in his closet.  A woman who smiled at him, too, and didn’t know that he had sold his soul or that selling souls was even possible.  

That was the source of the longing, Castiel thought.  Just longing for Sam, really.  Not for Castiel.  Or if not only longing for Sam, if he could not convince himself it was only that, he thought:   maybe Dean’s longing was longing for the life he had _shared_ with Sam, so different from the one he was living now.  The life on the road.   _Saving people, hunting things._ Castiel had been part of that.  For a little while, at least.  Maybe that was why he felt the call of Dean's longing.  Not because Dean was longing for Castiel, no.  Dean was not longing for Castiel.  He was only longing for the life that Castiel had been a part of.

Castiel told himself this.  He told himself this over, and over.  At first, he didn't even know it was a lie.

But Castiel felt Dean’s longing, and he felt something... wake, stir, in his own heart.  As he was not entirely sure what he felt from Dean, or why he felt it, he wasn’t sure of what was in his heart, either.  He hadn’t ever had emotions other than _certainty, obedience._ He didn't know how to identify these others that were stirring.

He thought that maybe he was longing, too.  For Dean. His heart ached, sweetly.  All the time, but especially when he thought of Dean.  And whatever it was that he felt but could not identify, its intensity multiplied when he felt Dean’s longing calling back to him.  Dean's longing amplifying the nameless ache that he felt, too.  Longing calling to longing, he thought it could be, maybe.  Though he didn't know, for sure.  He didn’t even know how to know.

And even if he had… He didn’t know _how_ to long for Dean.  He didn’t know how to want something that he didn’t have.  He didn’t know how to think about living differently than he was living.  In Heaven.  Waiting for orders.  Waiting for the next feint, the inevitable next volley to arise of of Hell and need to be vanquished.  

How should he want, he wondered, each time he felt that hard sweet tug in his heart.  Should he think of green eyes, staring at him with all the longing of every long night manifest there?  Should he think of touching Dean's face, gently, with his hands, his fingertips, over and over? Should he think of more?  Dean's lips??  Dean’s body, beneath his...  Should he dare, think of more?

He thought:  maybe it didn't matter, that he didn't know what to do.  

Because.

He thought:  maybe Dean was better off believing that Castiel was dead.  That maybe if Dean knew Castiel was alive, longing might turn to action, action that might ruin what Dean had built, put him in danger again, bring him back into the life.

Because the life was still there, and it still needed him.  Things still went bump in the night.  Heaven still schemed, and Hell still writhed like a snake with its head cut off.  There were still people to be saved.  There were still things to be hunted.

But no.  That was not for Dean, now, anymore, Castiel decided.  That would be cruel.  Dean had lost so much already.  Castiel could let him be happy.  Castiel could do that much. Dean was happy now.  He was safe.  He was happy.  He _was,_ Castiel told himself, in spite of the longing that never completely faded.  Castiel would not take away the sweetness, the comfort, that Dean had in his life now.  He would not replace it with hardness, and fear.  Violence.  The iron taste of blood.  He would not.  He would not, no matter what he decided he felt in his heart.   

But, still.  Dean _longed_.

And Castiel ignored it.  He thought:  maybe it wasn’t really longing at all, but guilt that Castiel had died, and Dean hadn’t been able to save him.  Not longing, just guilt.  

He thought:  it would lessen, fade away, until it was nothing.  He thought:  Dean’s new family would fill up Dean's heart until there was no room left for Castiel, and this _longing_.  

He thought: Dean would forgive himself.  

He thought:  Dean would forget him.  

He was wrong.  Dean's longing didn’t lessen.  It didn’t fade away.  It grew stronger.  Almost every day it grew stronger.  And in the nights, it was so strong it throbbed under Castiel's skin, and brought tears to Castiel’s eyes.  Castiel cried, silently, slowly, tears like rain water sliding clear and cold down a smooth glass window, silent as the wind tears leaves from trees on the other side.  And if he thought that Dean was crying too, if he imagined it, sensed it, _knew_ it somehow, some way, then he didn’t just cry silent, luminous, tears, that dropped like diamonds on the marble floors of Heaven.   He _wept_ .  Ugly and inconsolable and crumpled in on himself.  He doubled over, and his mouth opened wide and it _sobbed_ .   _Dean.  Oh, Dean.  Oh, my charge._  

Dean didn’t pray, not even when he cried.  Not once.  He didn’t call out Castiel's name, in hope, or in anguish.  Because he thought Castiel was dead, and Castiel didn’t allow him to find out otherwise.  He didn’t say the name, _Castiel_ , it wasn’t on his lips.  But it was in his heart.  It was in his heart, that _longed._

Especially in the nights.  In the dark.  In his cool bed.  Comfortable.  Clean sheets, soft and new.  Safe.   _Boring._ No hope for a lightning strike.  No hope at all, and it ate at Dean's heart, and he _longed,_ stoic and stone faced, without ever saying a word.

Dean's longing didn’t lessen, no matter how many times Castiel told himself it would.  It called out to Castiel’s heart and Castiel’s heart called back and Castiel didn’t _understand._ He didn’t understand why his rib cage hurt, when no one was attacking him, and why the pain didn't heal.  He didn’t understand why his thoughts circled back and back and back to Dean.  He didn’t know what to do.  He didn’t know what was best.  He didn’t have any orders about Dean Winchester, any more.

He didn't have any orders.  He could choose.  

And he made the best choice he knew how.  He chose to ignore Dean's longing, and suffer the pain in his rib cage, and let it feel like he was being attacked, and let his thoughts meander down, down, in endless, deep, dark, pools, if it meant keeping Dean safe.  

He chose to ignore it, when Dean’s heart called out to his.  He wasn’t selfish.  He let Dean have his life.  His safe, comfortable life.  He didn’t ruin it.  He was sure, so sure, convinced, that that was the truest way to show his devotion.   _Let Dean have his life.  Let him be free._

A year passed, this way.  Dean _longing_ and Castiel _hurting,_ and _not understanding,_ and, _ignoring_ .  And then it was a year, a whole year, since Dean had seen Castiel die, right in front of his eyes, a finger snap that turned _Castiel_ into a cloud of blood and bone.

On Earth, Dean drank.  On Earth, Dean looked at the two photos he had of Cas, the first, recent, the family portrait, Bobby in a wheelchair, Ellen alive, everyone _alive_.  He looked, and he drank.  And then, numbed from alcohol--because he couldn't have done it otherwise -- then he looked at the other photo.  The one from the future.  From Chitaqua.  The photo of the Cas that had followed him, even to the end of days.  Stubbled and dirty and carrying a gun, and squinting into the camera with steel flint eyes.  That Castiel had ‘liked him.’ But he had thrown himself at death, for the other-Dean there.

On Earth, slumped to the too-clean floor of his too-clean kitchen, with his back against the too-clean island, Dean rubbed his hand against his jaw and his thumb against tear-lined eyes and he drank and he _longed_.  

In Heaven, Castiel fell to his knees.  In Heaven, Castiel called out Dean's name.  In Heaven, Castiel clutched his heart.  It didn’t just ache any more, it _stabbed_ . It was so sharp.  Dean's longing called to him, it cried out, in the night.  It _wrenched_ him, his heart, his grace, his incorporeal body, towards his aching, hurting, _longing_ charge.  It was pulling his heart of of his chest, breaking his ribs, splintering them through his skin, _dragging_ him towards Dean with fiery talons  that he resisted, resisted.    

It hurt and it burned and it tore at him, it tore at him where he was weakest, in his heart.  Demanding that he go to his charge, who was calling, for him.  Who needed intercession.

But he could not go where he was called.  Not yet, though he cried.

Instead, on his knees, between breaths of “Dean,” and gasping sobs, he prayed to Anael.  He prayed to his sister, because he hurt; he prayed to his commander, because he didn’t know what to do.  Anael had told him what to do for so long, so long, in the garrison.  He could choose now, but maybe she would tell him what to do once again.  He needed help.  He… he _hurt_ so much.  

She heard his prayers, and she came to him, in Heaven.  

“Castiel,” she said, and looked at him with sad, wide, eyes.  “Oh, brother.  Oh, dear heart.  Oh sweet one.  Tell me why you’re hurting.” Though in truth she already knew.  The entire Host knew.  They felt the longing that did not have a name, too.  They cried, for their brother, or they clenched their teeth and tried to ignore it and hated Castiel, that he had this, that it had been given to him.  But they all knew.  The call was so strong.  It echoed, in the halls of Heaven, when Castiel's diamond tears shattered on the floor.

“Dean,” he said, just one word, and it quavered.  “He… I can feel him.  He needs me… He calls to me.  My charge, he calls.”  He was shaking.  

Anael wrapped her pure, white, wings around Castiel’s shoulders, and her soft skinned hands around his face.  Her wings were warm, and her hands cool.  And she so gentle, voice and touch.  “Why do you not go to him?”  All the Host wondered this.  Especially in the nights.  Many teardrops fell then.  So many.

Castiel gritted out his answer, jaw clenched, voice a misery, still on his knees, his head in Ana’s lap.  “He’s happy, now.  He’s safe.  He has what he’s always wanted.  I don’t want to… It would only be selfish, to go to him.  I don’t want to ruin it.   He already gave up so much, Ana, he gave up his mother, his father, his brother, he gave them all up for us.  I can’t take any more away from him, now.”  

Ana’s brow creased.  “He does not have what he wants, Castiel. Not _everything._ ” _surely you can feel it.  Why do you deny it_  “Every one of the Host can feel it.  He _longs_ for you.  He calls out for you, through the firmament.  He needs _you_ .  You are hurting him, Castiel, brother.  Every second you are away.  You are hurting him.  To go to him now would not _take_ from him, it would _give_ him what he needs.”

Castiel shook his head.  “No.  It’s better if he thinks I’m dead.  It’s better if he doesn’t try… if he doesn’t call attention to himself.  It’s better this way.  I'm too… It's too dangerous.” He shook his head again.  “No. He will forgive himself.  He will forget.  It hurts now but in the long term… In the long term, it is better.  It is better.”  The repetition was not convincing, to him or to Ana, though it was meant to be.  Instead it sounded like what it was.  Desperation.  Desperation for Dean's longing to be something other than what it patently was.  

Anael stroked Castiel’s hair, and closed her eyes in sadness for her brother and his pure heart, bound to break.  “He is mortal, Castiel.  What if he does not forgive?  What if he does not forget?  What if he dies, and you never went to him.  What if he dies, and you never…what if he dies with his heart still sore from this longing, because you never eased it?”

Castiel sniffled, and tried to take a brave breath, make his voice strong when it tried to only whisper.  “Then he dies.  With no evil threatening him.  With no angels trying to force themselves into his body.  He dies without having to be party to Heaven’s schemes, and Hell’s destruction.  He dies free.”  Castiel did not sound brave.  He sounded like he was  asking a question.

 _Oh, pure heart,_ Ana thought.   _Oh, my sweet brother._ “You don’t believe that, Castiel.  You don’t-- tell me you don’t believe that.  Tell me you understand, what there is between you and Dean.  What there could be.  Tell me you understand what it’s worth, what it means.”  Privately, she thought that he did understand.  She thought that he understood, and that his human did too, but that they were _afraid_.  And it surprised her, because Castiel was the bravest of all her brothers.  He had faced such evils.  Faced them and been strong, and true, and had not flinched.  Fought such battles, and emerged, unburnt, unshaken, always pure.

But this… Gabriel said that this was different.  That in this, Castiel did not know how to be brave.  Maybe because of their Father.  Castiel had only known heartbreak, when he had tried to love.  That was true of all of the angels, really, and they all dealt with it differently.  Gabriel himself by hiding behind a persona of utter flippancy.  Ana by Falling.  Balthazar by drowning his sorrows in over indulgence.  Zachariah and Uriel by snuffing out every mote of joy in their souls and becoming smug automatons.  And Castiel… Castiel by being afraid to love like that again.

Gabriel was such an asshole, Ana did not want want to believe he was right, about anything.  Though maybe he was, just this once..  Maybe he understood _this_.  Maybe, she thought, as she held Castiel and waited for his reply.

“Ana,” tears flowed freely from Castiel’s eyes, and his face crumpled in complete devastation until it was only a shell of hurt.  “I can’t.  I just… he thinks I’m dead.  I can’t.  I don't know _how_.”  

 _How do I help him?_ Ana asked herself.   _How do I help him be brave?_ “He is not happy, Castiel.” Her tone so gentle, so kind.  But the words like a slap in the face.

And like he was slapped, Castiel recoiled.  He knew it was true:  Dean was _not_ happy.  Dean’s longing was _not_ fading away.  No matter how sure Castiel was that it would, or how long he waited.  And that _mattered._ It _mattered_ to Castiel, if Dean really was _not_ happy.  “Sister… I don't… I don't know what to do.  I don't know how….”

 _Yes you do, Castiel.  You know what to do.  You are only afraid._ “Ssshhh, I know, sweet one.  I know, dear heart.  You will find the way.  His longing, the way it calls-- it will show you the way.  You will not be able to deny it.  It will not be like this forever.”

But Castiel didn't believe her.  He didn't, he _couldn't,_ because he hurt so much, _so much,_ right then, and he didn't know what to do to make it better, and regardless of Ana’s words he couldn't even begin to imagine the way.  It couldn't be as easy as just going to Dean, revealing himself, taking him into his arms, could it?  That seemed too easy.  Too selfish. It couldn't be that way.  Whatever way there was, or might be, for him to ease Dean's longing, and his own, it would be hard, he knew.  Too hard, probably.  That way would ask too much of them.  He was sure.  It was never easy, for him and Dean.  And this…. To bring their hearts together,so they didn't have to ache?  It would be too good, too valuable.  It would have to cost too much.  It could not be easy, to win Dean’s heart.  So beautiful, so brave… it could not be easy.  It would have to be impossible.  It would _have_ to be. To win something that rare, that precious.  That is what Castiel believed.  Not Ana’s soft words.  

So he sobbed in Ana’s arms, until he couldn’t sob any more, and she held him, and stroked his hair, and whispered “Oh Castiel. Dear Castiel. Sweet Castiel.  It will be alright.  You will find him. You will find him.”

So good, so loving, his sister, Castiel thought, in moments when Dean’s longing ebbed and he could think at all.  She was as the angels should have been.  Full of love, and wonder.  No surprise, then, that she had not wanted to stay among them, when she saw what they became.

And Ana, for her part, thought much the same as she held her brother’s head in her lap.  That here was an angel as they all should have been, an angel that made her proud.  Here was an angel who knew how to love, to be made of love, to show devotion.  She hoped that she could learn, to be like Castiel.  And she hoped that he could find happiness, that he would follow his perfect heart, and that it would lead him to what he deserved with his charge.    

Castiel was only able to stop crying when it was morning on Earth, and Dean’s longing receded.  He stood on two feet finally, in the morning, and embraced his sister and thanked her for her solace.  She nodded, and looked at him with wide, kind, eyes.

Castiel went next into the Garden, into meditation, and he closed his sore, reddened eyes and listened to the sounds of Paradise, and found a short-lived peace.  The grass there was green and soft between his toes, and the sky blue, and the bees buzzed on Castiel's shoulders when he had been still long enough that they did not fear him.  He listened to the bees.  He knew their song.  They sang of nectar on petals, and fresh grass, and the health of the queen.  Their song was simple, and sweet, and it eased his aching heart.

It eased his aching heart for a while.  But Dean’s longing came again.  Like always, sure as the slow drip of honey in the comb, it came again, and it was so strong that, even in the Garden, even in the heart of light and peace, it found Castiel, and pierced his heart once more. It found Castiel, and as he clenched his chest, and the bees startled and left him, he remembered Anael’s sweet voice, full of such sorrow, telling him, “He is not happy, Castiel.”  

And he knew it was true.  He could not deny it, any more, now that it had taken words, been spoken out loud.  Dean had a good life, a safe life, a life he thought he wanted.  But he wasn’t happy.  He _longed_ for Castiel.

So Castiel went to him.   _Finally,_ Castiel went to him.  He hid himself, but he went to him.  He had to.  He couldn't resist, any more, this selfishness, this doomed call of his heart.

A flutter of wings, and he descended from Heaven.  

And there was Dean.  He was raking leaves.  He was wearing jeans and a tshirt and a flannel and a jacket.  

Castiel couldn't breathe, when he saw him.  Had Dean always been this beautiful?  Had Castiel's heart always beat so hard, when he saw him.   _Yes,_ his heart said.   _Yes,_ his eyes said.   _Yes.  Yes.  Yes.  Since the first time.  Since the very first time.  You laid your hand upon him in Hell and you were lost._

The sun was on Dean's face, golden-bright in his hair, and Castiel could not breathe.  He didn’t even need oxygen, in this form, and still he felt breathless, light headed, unsteady.

Dean's face wasn’t happy, or sad, as he raked the leaves in his yard into a pile.  It was just thoughtful.  He could have been thinking about anything.  If his neighbors had walked by, they could have imagined he was thinking about replacing the loose shingle on the roof, or whether he was saving enough for Ben’s college, or whether he was going to need to mow the lawn again this year before the frost came.  

He _could_ have been thinking of any of those things.  But he was not.  Castiel knew.  It was clear as the autumn sun what Dean was thinking of, this close to the throb of his longing.  He was thinking of Castiel.  He was thinking of blue eyes, and dark hair. He was thinking of how Castiel had rebelled. He was thinking of how brave Castiel was. He was thinking of how Castiel had thrown a fire bomb at Lucifer, at the devil himself, knowing that he would die.  How he was _so_ brave.  How no one should be that brave.  

Castiel had gone to Thrull knowing he was going to die.  He had known that and he had gone anyway.  Brave angel.  So beautiful…  And Castiel had said it was for ‘humanity’, he had said it was for ‘free will’, he had said that this was how he thought he should best carry the flag of Heaven, and do the work of the Father.  But Dean knew that was all crap.  He knew it.  He didn't want to know it, but he did.  Castiel had done it, all of it, for him.  Castiel had told him that, too, in as many words. Castiel had done it for him.  Castiel had given up _everything_ , he had _ended himself_ for Dean, and Dean alone of all God's creations.

And why?  And what was Dean worth?  Dean asked himself this, raking leaves, the same few stragglers that avoided his rake over and over, not really trying to catch them, just going through the motions, just wasting time, chewing his lip, thinking this all over, not for the first time.  What was he worth?  Really.  He was just some guy, nothing special about him, nothing at all, here he was with a rake and a yard and one of the angels of Heaven was gone now, gone forever, because of him.  Because Dean had _ruined_ him.  That was the truth, inescapable.  Beautiful, true, fierce, and pure, and Dean had _ruined_ him.  Cut him off from his family, brought him low, got him killed.  The most beautiful… And Dean had _ruined_ him.  

Tears leaked down Castiel’s face as he watched, and heard this eulogy play itself in Dean’s mind.   _Oh no, Dean.  Oh no no no no._

Then Castiel's heart stopped in his chest, and his hand had to clutch there, to check that he was still corporeal, that his body, gone numb, hadn't dissipated from the plane.  Because next Dean started to wish that he could have died in Castiel's place.  To _long_ for that, the absolute release of death.  He would have done it.  Taken Castiel's place.  Gladly.  He still would.  If offered the choice, if he could give himself up, and bring Castiel back, he would do it in a heartbeat, and never look back, no matter where the hellhounds took him and what he found when he got there.  It would be an easy trade.  An obvious one.  Just Dean, just a worthless mortal, bound to die and go to Hell in a handful of years anyway, instead of the bravest, the purest, the _most beautiful..._ it would be no trade at all.  

 _No, Dean, my charge, oh, no.  Not you for me.  Never._ Castiel still clutched himself in horror, but Dean couldn't see him, and so he continued his maudlin thoughts, unaware in his melancholy.    

While Castiel watched him, heart stopped, eyes wet, invisible, Dean raked his leaves and wished that he could have held Castiel in his arms, one time, just one time. Wished that he could have known what it felt like, to kiss Castiel, and know the taste of his lips.  He thought they would taste like electricity, like putting a battery on your tongue.  He doesn’t know if Castiel ever wished for that too, and he wonders.  There were a couple of times when he thought maybe, maybe… There was that flash, sometimes, in Castiel's eyes… But it was never the right time.  Or he never let it be the right time.  And he'll never know, now, he’s alive and Castiel’s dead and He'll never know whether Castiel would have...And Castiel will never know, now much Dean _wanted.._ .   And _longing_ pulses from his chest.   _This_ is the longing.  There is no escaping it now.  No confusing it for guilt or nostalgia.   _This_ is how Dean longs for Castiel, in the nights.   _This,_ is what Castiel feels, answering in his heart.

_Dean._

Castiel still stands hidden behind Dean, unmoving, with tears running steady down his face.   _Oh Dean._   _Yes.  I did wish for that.  For your kiss.  For your arms around me… I wished for that with my whole heart.  I wished for that so hard it hurt and so often that I could not count the number.  I rebelled, for that.  I was ready to Fall, for that._ **_Anything_ ** _, for that._ But... he never knew Dean… yes he _wanted_ , and yes he, too, would look into Dean’s eyes and think _maybe_ , but he never… even the night that Ana held him and the longing was so strong his heart felt like it was pierced with a knife, he never hoped for _this._ That Dean… His heart...

He could have appeared to Dean, then, and given him the kiss they both wished for; he could have held Dean in his arms and kissed him on his lips and they could have floated a hundred feet in the air, heady, dizzy, risen on Castiel’s wings until the sun was too hot on their skin.

But he didn’t.  He didn’t.  That would be too rash, that would be too much, that would be too soon.  He had only come here to see, for himself.  To see, and hope maybe that he would see that Dean was happy, that Anael was wrong, that Dean was doing fine and that his _longing_ for Castiel was only a memory, a habit, only lingering, only a candle sure to soon go out.  

Anael was not wrong.  Castiel was wrong.  So, so wrong.  Dean was not happy.  Dean was not thinking about whether or not he would have to mow the lawn again this fall.  Dean was thinking about how he and Castiel had never had the chance he would have wanted for them, and about how he wishes he were dead in Castiel’s place.  And this wish is not a candle, it is not going out.  This wish is a fire, and it blackens and destroys.  

It is destroying Dean.  Slowly, one little inch of his soul every day, every night, it destroys, but it is taking what was once so bright and turning it black with regret.

Castiel can’t bear it.  He cannot _bear_ to see that happening to Dean, and know it's his fault, and do nothing.  So though it is a bad idea, though it is not what he promised himself when he decided to come here and watch, only watch, and though he knows that it will only lead to more serious infractions, he acts.  

He releases a part of himself, a wisp of his grace, of his _own_ longing-- now certain that that is what he feels, in his poor, battered, heart-- and he lets it go to Dean.  He lets it grow in the green grass at Dean’s feet and turn the pigment in the few last leaves Dean is raking just a little bit redder.  

The world seems more beautiful to Dean, for that moment, before Castiel’s grace fades.  The world seems just a little more beautiful, and his longing eases.  

Castiel smiles, and goes back to Heaven.  Thinking he made it better.  

He was wrong again. He did not make it better

When night falls on Earth, Dean is sitting on his porch, staring at the stars with a beer in his hand.  He raises the beer to his mouth, and thinks about how beautiful the world was that afternoon, how red the leaves, how green the grass, and how beautiful it should be now, the night, and the stars, but how instead the sky just seems gray and dim as ash.  

His longing returns, stronger than it was before, so strong that it knocks Castiel off his feet, where he stands in Heaven’s library, trying to put a book back on its shelf.  The book falls, pages fluttering, to the floor. Castiel can't move to pick it up.  He is frozen by Dean's longing.  It is so strong.

It is so strong that Gabriel manifests at Castiel’s side, and smacks him on the back of the head.  “Make it stop, dumb fuck,” he says, “I can’t fucking sleep up here because your boyfriend’s pining for you so hard.  Make it stop.”

“Gabriel--”

Gabriel interrupts him, pointing a finger at Castiel’s face and narrowing his eyes.  “Make.  It.  Stop.”  

And then he disappears again, leaving Castiel alone in a library row that stretches on forever in either direction, “How?” formed but not spoken on his lips.  And normally Castiel loves the library, loves how it is quiet and calm, but now it seems sad.  It seems so empty.  The rows go on forever, but there is nothing in them.  Certainly not green eyes.  Certainly not freckles.  

He leaves the book.  He goes to Dean.  He sits by him, again invisible, on the porch, on the swing that hangs there, careful not to let it sway, or creak, under his weight.  He goes to Dean and he releases some of his grace into the night sky.  Another infraction.  Not the last, he knows now.  It will not be the last.  

Dean experiences it as a cloud dispersing, so that all of a sudden he can see all the stars in the sky.  So many stars, and the night doesn’t even seem dark, any more.  It is violet, amethyst, moon-bright.  It is the whole universe, and it is alive.

Dean sips his beer, and his hand reaches out, toward the porch swing.  He doesn’t realize he’s doing it until it’s already done, and then he shakes his head.  There’s no one on the porch swing.  He’s alone.  There’s no one on the porch swing.  No one with blue eyes.  No one with chapped lips.  There’s no one.  

The stars cloud over again.  The sky goes dark.  The porch swing sways, as if someone has stood up and left.  But there is no one.  Dean is alone.

 

*****

_I didn’t feel so bad till the sun went down_

Castiel didn’t wait a year before he went to Dean again.  He couldn’t have, if he had wanted to.  Anael was right.  His heart was showing him the way.

He waited a week.  

Dean’s longing was stronger in the nights, so strong.  Castiel didn’t know why.  The six nights he bore it, alone in Heaven, he wondered if Dean laid awake in bed and cried, silently.  He wondered if Dean waited until his family was asleep and then drank, too much.  He wondered if Dean wiped the fog off the mirror after his evening shower and stood, in slowly coiling steam, looking at himself through the mirror, darkly.

For six nights, Castiel wondered.

On the seventh night, a Thursday, Castiel went to him.  

Dean was not lying awake in bed, crying silently.  He was not in the kitchen, or out on the porch, drinking too much.  He was not staring at his mirror.  He was asleep.  He was tossing, and turning.  

He was dreaming.

Castiel did not have to enter the dream to know what it was about.  It was clear as if it were Castiel’s own dream.  So close to Dean, the dream _called_ to him.  

Dean dreamt of the few seconds before Lucifer killed Castiel at Thrull.  The few seconds before Castiel exploded in rank carnage.  It was that few seconds, over, and over, and over again.  And the worst part for Dean, the worst for Dean each time, was not when Castiel erupted.  It was the moment before.  The moment before when he thought:

_I could still save him._

_I could distract Lucifer._

_I could get between them, somehow._

_I could banish all the angels._

_I could freeze time._

_I could take his place_

_I could say goodbye._

_I could love him better._

And then, before he can act, before he can even circle all the way through the list of ways he could protect Cas, the things he should say, the ways he could be better:  blood in the air.

 _And now he’ll never know_.

And falling.  And heartbreak.  

Over, and over, and over.

Tears leak silently down Castiel’s face, again.  His face is wet all the time, now, it seems.  The cuffs of his trenchcoat are stiff and crystalline with salt, from drying his eyes so often.   _Oh Dean.  Oh my charge.  That you cry, not knowing: that you are my hero.  That you could not have saved me._

Castiel reaches out towards Dean’s shaking body, from where he is standing, invisible, in the shadows in the corner of the room.  He reaches out two fingers, but does not touch.  He reaches out two fingers, and lets another wisp of grace go to Dean.  Another infraction.  A bigger one, because this time he does not send his grace into the Earth, or the sky.  He sends it into Dean.  His grace envelops Dean, covers him, glows bright blue and then sinks inside him.  Dean stops tossing and turning immediately.  

His dream changes, too.  Now he is lying in a field.  It is not drab and browned and dead like the field in Thrull.  It is much like the Garden.  Grass is green and sky is cloudless, and blue.  A soft breeze whispers in the grass, and Dean runs his fingers through the blades and they feel so clean.  He feels clean, too.  He doesn't feel all the blood that should be on him.  He doesn't feel the dirt, that never washes away, no matter how hard he scrubs.  His skin just feels the sun, warm and yellow and bright.  No shadows in this field, only sun, nowhere a monster could hide.  Safe, it is safe in this field, he knows.  He does not have to fear.  He likes it, here.   

And best of all:  Whenever he blinks he sees blue eyes.  They should make him sad, those blue eyes; usually they make him sad, these days, because they are not real, and because they are gone and because he failed them.  But in this dream, they are real.  They are not far away.  They are so close, and they are warm, and full of love.  They are watching over him.  They _know_ him.  They _love_ him.  They are alive.  They will live forever, here.  Forever crystal and perfect and pure and free of pain.  Dean can see that, he can see all of that, every time he blinks, and it makes him feel so light.   

His fingers pluck the grass.  They find a dandelion, and he plucks that too, and brings it to his lips.  He blows a gentle breath and watches the seeds float away on the breeze.   _I wish for this_ , he dreams.   _Blue skies and blue eyes_ _and sunshine._   

He closes his eyes in the field and sleeps easy, for the rest of the night.  But in the morning, his heart feels sore.  A muscle that worked too much.  In the morning, he looks out the window of his kitchen while his family bustles around him, and he looks up at the fall sky and it is blue, and cloudless, but when he blinks he does not see blue eyes.   And he _longs._

 

_*****_

_Every breath that is in your lungs is a tiny little gift to me._

Five days.  Castiel waits five days, and then he is back in the shadows of Dean’s room as Dean shivers and spasms in his sleep, and whispers, forlorn “no.  No.”

Five nights and Dean is dreaming of blue eyes again, but they are far away, they are blurring as they recede into the distance.  They are cold.

They don't know him.

They are lined with tears.   

They are full of pain.

Are they real, Dean wonders?  Those eyes, are they full of pain right now, in Hell somewhere?  Because of him?  Is his ang-- is _Castiel_ on some horned, screeching, demon's rack, being cut and sliced until his pure, perfect eyes leak tears and he screams out, in his pain?  Does he scream out for Dean?  For comfort, or in blame?  

The dream shifts as soon as Dean thinks this, zooms back, too fast, and then forward, too fast, and then-- there.   _No, no._ There is the Pit _._ There are the racks, Dean remembers them, he will never forget. And there is Castiel:  hands shackled high above his head to a worn, splintered, blood stained plank, arms and legs stretched out and straining.  His eyes are red-rimmed and full of tears.  His body is slumped, exhausted, but still tense with pain.  He is damp with sweat, pale from the loss of the blood that seeps from the many cuts on his face, his chest, his arms.

The cuts run deep.

A demon -- a hulking, bulging, bat-winged _thing_ \-- licks Castiel's face with its black, forked tongue, tastes the salt of Castiel’s sweat there.  It is bitter.  It tastes like pain, and fear.  The demon likes it, and laps again, talon rising up to press its point into Castiel's chin and hold his face still so it can taste him again, and again.  

 _No -- you motherfucker, no_ .   _Cas..._

Licking its decaying lips to chase the taste of Castiel, the demon runs its yellow fingernails, long, pointed, down Castiel's pale chest.  Castiel flinches from every touch, but that only makes the demon smile its sharp toothed smile, because Castiel cannot escape, he can only flinch and cringe and be hurt.  The demon is naked, and its huge, veined cock is erect, head butting up against Castiel's thighs, his stomach.

_Don't touch him, please, please..._

But the demon doesn't hear Dean.  Dean is not there, to save Castiel from this.   Unhurried, the demon smiles, and slides his claws between the cuts and rivulets of blood marring Castiel's chest, until he finds a place he likes, a place that is unmarked.  Then he cuts there.  He cuts in hard, deep, with a razor blade, and then Dean can only see Castiel's eyes again, dark with pain, just his eyes, as he cries out, _Dean._

 _“_ No. Cas, No,” he cries softly into his pillow.  “No.”

Back in the shadowed corner of Dean's bedroom, tears leak from Castiel's eyes, and he so wants to appear to Dean, and take him into his arms.  Fill the room with light and whisper into his ear “It's alright Dean.  I'm here.  It's OK.  That's not real.  It's not real.  It never was.  It never will be.  I'm here, with you.  Always, with you.”

The desire to go to Dean is so strong that Castiel’s body shifts, and becomes just a little more corporeal, enough to stir the air, before he can stop himself.  

He can't do that.  He _can't_.  He's not ready.  That's not why he's here.  That's not what's best, for Dean.

Lies.  Papering over a desperate fear.  But enough to stop him from going to Dean embodied.  This time.

Instead, Castiel reaches out towards Dean.  With his whole hand, this time, palm first.  He reaches out and his palm glows with grace that then ripples through the air like satin and covers Dean’s body as it did before, and pulses once before sinking into him.  More grace, than the last times.  A bigger infraction, if Castiel is going to continue to think of his interactions with Dean like that.  

Enough grace for Castiel to enter the dream.

And there, Castiel breaks free of his shackles.  They are nothing.  He is power, he is the light.  He is an angel of the Lord, and he cannot be contained.  He burns with a pure, white, radiance that leaks from all his cuts and heals them.  It is so bright, it is so sharp, Castiel's light:  it blinds the demon that hurt him and it staggers back, hissing in pain, dropping to its knees with its hands covering its smouldering eyes.

“Mercy,” it hisses, craven, but Castiel will show it none.  His face is cold and fierce, his eyes are ice.  He is a creature of perfect judgement, cruel and beautiful and hard as marble.  He is the justice of the Lord God, he is inevitable, inescapable, always.

He alights from the rack, and the arch of his bare foot is perfect, Dean thinks.  Every part of him is perfect.  Every inch of his skin, every contour of his body, every share of light that colors him pale and crimson, black and sapphire.  Dean is fascinated as with each step he takes on those perfect feet, each step toward his demon foe, his wings emerge into this plane from behind him.  They are black, lustrous, oiled and lush and gleaming in the flickering red light of the Pit.  They are strong, they are spread wide.  The are the radius of lightning, of the power crackling around Castiel as he advances.

His eyes flash.  He steps forward to where the demon now kneels, abject, in front of him, and touches his palm to the demon’s head.  “Mercy,” it begs again, hopeless, on a voiceless breath.  

Castiel smites it to ashes in a single fission of holy light.

And then he flies.  The corpse is still smoking, still slumping to the ground when Castiel turns and takes wing.  Dean watches him rise above the rack, rise up into the smoke and ash of the Pit, a bright firefly in the darkness, and just when Dean can’t see him anymore, just when he flies too high and vanishes, the dream changes.  Zoom, zoom.  

Now Dean is lying in the Garden again.  The racks are gone, the dark is gone, the screams are gone.  The flickering shadows, gone.  Here, the grass is soft under his back, and tickles his neck where it is bare.  Flowers have grown in around his place on the ground, since last he was here, indigo shaded forget-me-nots, and they lean heavy-petaled over him, brushing his chest and casting long-fingered shadows.  Their scent is light and floral and surrounds him in a delicate cloud.  

The sun is bright, as before, as always in the Garden, and Dean shades his eyes as he lies on his back, because there is something in the air above him, and he is trying to see it through the glare.  A tiny, black figure, at first, just a shadow, but he is not afraid.  There is no fear, here.

It spirals down towards him.  A human body and wings.  Downward, downward, a new detail revealing itself with every circle down.  Black hair.  Pale, bare, chest.  A white garment wrapped low around its hips, covering its legs.  Banded in gold, at the waist, and again around lean, muscled, arms.  A halo.  

And finally, as the figure lands beside him, so gently it barely even bends the grass:  blue eyes.  

“Cas,” he whispers, voice breaking, and he reaches out with both arms, desperate in this gesture but not caring how he seems.  He never sees Castiel in his dreams, anymore.  Only in nightmares.  Only on the rack, only exploding in the cemetery in Thrull.  Only in pain.

“Dean,” Castiel replies, and his voice is so deep.  It is still just the way Dean remembers it.  He did not forget.  He has not forgotten.  He did not exaggerate it, in his longing, in his sorrow.  Castiel’s voice is still gravel and Dean can still feel in his chest.  In his sore heart.

“Are you--” _real?  OK?  Alive?  Here?_ He doesn't finish his question.  Castiel puts a finger to his lips, a long, beautiful finger, and reaches out to take his face, so gently, in his other hand, and look at him with wide eyes.  

Castiel tilts his head, and looks at him with eyes deep as ancient wishing wells and as full of longing, but he doesn't say another word.  

Somehow Dean understands that he _can't_.  That that is the rule of this dream. Castiel is with him, but not all with him.  Not enough to talk.  Only see, and touch.  

He understands, as Castiel guides Dean's head back down to rest in the grass, and pillows it there in his hand, fingers combing into the strands of Dean's hair.  As Castiel turns on his side and starts drawing patterns over the tshirt covering Dean’s stomach.  He understands what this Castiel does not --cannot -- say.   _I’m here.  I’ll watch over you.”_ Watch, and touch.  It will be enough.  It is so much more than he thought he would ever… It means so much.  It will be enough.

Dean turns his head, to look at Castiel, to look at his eyes.  To see them here, in this place, to see them in the light, to see them warm and close and so full of… so full of….  Dean stutters, even within himself, safe, in the dream, he stutters.  But the sun still shines down.

Dean gets sleepy in the sun, and the sweet scent, guard down, safe, staring into those eyes.  His own eyes slip shut, slowly, eventually, but those blue eyes don't even blink, not once.  In the morning, when Dean wakes, he is sure, they didn’t even blink once.

Of course it wasn't enough.  

 

*****

_You know why you love at all if you’re thinking of the Holy Ghost._

 

Three days.  Dean dreamt of the field every night, and the tone of his longing changed.  It wasn’t so _hopeless_ .  It wasn’t so _distraught_ .  It wasn’t only guilt, and heartbreak, and the fear of being broken hearted forever.  Now he remembered what Castiel’s eyes looked like, when they were not full of pain.  Now he knew what it felt like, to lie in a field, with Castiel next to him, safe, whole, drawing on his stomach, watching over him.  He knew that it felt _good,_ that he could feel good again, that it was possible.  Even if just in dreams.  

He wished he could dream that dream forever.  

He wished he never had to wake up with a sore heart.

For three nights after Castiel visited he dreamt of the field, but he was alone there.  Each night he lay with his hands laced behind his head, a piece of grass in his mouth, waiting for an angel to appear in the corona of the sun, and come to him.  Each night wishing that he had never told Castiel not to watch over him.  That he had never said it was creepy.  That he had let Castiel watch over him every single night.  Because now Castiel couldn’t watch over him, any more.  Now, only in dreams.  

He lay alone in the field and he _longed_.  He didn’t understand why his brain would dream him the same field, but not bring him Castiel.  He didn’t understand why when he blinked he only saw the dark backs of his eyelids.  He didn’t understand, and he dreamed and he longed for three days and three nights.

Three days, and three nights, until Castiel came again.  Spiraled down out of the sky like the sun god coming to claim his tribute:  the bravest, most beautiful, the brightest and purest of his worshippers.  Light glinting off his halo and off the gold banded around his body in bright, sharp, flashes.  Soaring on the air currents, wings spread wide.  Strong, and sure. But always downward, downward.  To Dean.

Castiel landed gently with feet that sunk deep into the bed of flowers growing tall and fragrant now in Dean's bower.  The petals kissed Castiel’s ankles, so softly, and Dean wished for one moment that he could kiss those ankles with his lips, instead.  He would kiss them even more softly than the petals, he thought.  He would kiss them over and over, just there.  His lips would linger, and his eyes would slip closed, and he would kiss...

“Dean,” Castiel said, as Dean stared at Castiel’s feet, lost in softness, and brought Dean’s attention back to his eyes.  Blue eyes.  One word and one word only was spoken-- _Dean_ \--and when Dean opened his mouth to add more words-- _Cas.  Are you real?  Are you here?  Are you alive?  I miss you, so much.  I need you, so much.  I'm sorry.  I'm so, so, so sorry--_ Castiel’s fingers were there again, pressed gentle against his lips.  The rule of the dream. The same rule, as before.  

This was the rule that Castiel had decided, the new wall between them, now that he had smashed through the old one (Don’t go to him.  Don’t see him.  Ignore him.  Ignore his _longing._ Stay away).  This was the new rule, because Castiel was _afraid_ to talk to Dean.  Afraid Dean would be able to tell he was real, not only dreamt of.  Afraid he would confess too much.   _Dean.  I'm here.  It's me, it's really me.  The Father brought me back.  He brought me back and gave me to you, my charge, to protect, only you, forever.  I love you, Dean.  I will watch over you, always.  I will keep you safe.  I will stand by you come what may. I love you, Dean.  With everything, I love you, my hero, my heart.  Let me keep you.  Please, let me keep you beside me.  Let me touch you, let me hold you close, safe in my arms; let me show you, please.  Anything.  Please.  I love you._

A confession like that would be… too risky.  Too terrifying.  Too fraught.  It could ruin the comfort and safety Dean had found, that Castiel still wanted to protect.  Above all else.  Above the needs of Heaven.  Above his own needs.  So he had decided on this new rule, and he did not speak.  Instead, he touched his first two fingertips to Dean’s lips, while he looked into Dean’s eyes, and begged.  Silently.   _Don’t talk.  Don’t.  I can’t_.

Dean understood.  He understood that dreams could have rules.  He understood needing to say so much that he couldn’t say anything at all.  He understood being afraid, of words.  He understood that he never got what he wanted.  So he nodded his head, fractionally.  

Castiel’s fingertips lingered on his lips as his head moved and he felt just the smallest drag there, the smallest tug of ivory skin against chapped lips.  

 _Mmmmmm_ , Dean thought.   _That touch.  That… lingering.  That is not forbidden.  What else…?_  And slowly, like the ice age, holding Castiel's eyes with his own and braced for any sign of rejection, denial, he took Castiel’s first finger from where it rested against his lips, into his mouth, up to the first knuckle, and touched his teeth and tongue to it, just.  

Castiel did not move.  He sat, still as the Father's throne in Heaven.  Breath held.  He did not move.

 _This is not forbidden,_ Dean understood, still testing the limits of the dream.   _What else.  What else can we have, here?  What else can I have, in this place beyond death, to make my heart ache in the morning?_

He released Castiel's first finger and took his second, scraped teeth against it and tongued it just the same.  He never took his eyes off of Castiel’s.  He watched them so carefully, to see if they would close off, narrow, back away.  

They did not close off.  The did not narrow.  They did not back away. There was nothing forbidden, in them.  Nothing.  Dean's whole body shivered, when he saw that permission dark and deep there, and he kept holding Castiel's gaze tight, kept holding those eyes with his own to make sure, completely sure.

He was sure.  Castiel's eyes forbade him nothing.  Nothing at all that was his heart's desire.  They widened, as Dean held that second finger in his mouth.  They darkened with lust.  They hovered in closer, just a little bit closer.  They were fascinated, by the feeling of Dean’s tongue.  And they forbade him _nothing._

 _Is this how Cas would have looked at me, if I had touched him, before?  Or is it only the dream?_ Dean asked himself.   _Is it only what I want, not what is real, not what would have been?_ He would never know, he thought.  He would never know if Castiel's eyes would really have widened like that, if Dean had taken his fingers into his mouth and tongued them, on Earth.

Dean did not know that this _was_ real.  That Castiel's eyes _were_ widening, and darkening with lust.  That the moment was endangering Castiel's rule.  Because Castiel felt Dean's pulse of _longing_ (for more, always more) _,_ of _regret_ (for having missed this chance so many times, when Cas was alive) _,_ of, _questioning (_ not knowing whether Castiel would have wanted this, or even whether it was ok now _),_ and he wanted to answer him, _Dean, yes, of course, yes, always yes,_ but he did not have his words, and he was afraid to bring them to bear.  So, so, afraid, of what they might reveal, what damage they might wreak.  And so he could only pray them, silently, and suffer Dean's doubt.

So he suffered.  He suffered Dean's uncertainty in what should have been certain, and he suffered his own profound regret.  Regret that wrapped around his heart, and ached, and drowned him deep.  Regret because, oh… Castiel had never known Dean’s _tongue_ before.  Tongue now touched lightly to his index and middle finger; it had never touched any part of him, before.  Never for real, only in secret dreams that were only dim shadows, of this.  

And why not?  Why had he never allowed it?  Why had he not _demanded_ this, come to Dean crackling with power and forced Dean to his knees and _required_ this of him?  Why had he not thrown himself at Dean’s feet and _begged_ for it?  He would have.  He would have begged.  If he had known… If he had known that it felt like this when Dean’s tongue touched his body, he would have begged.

Why why why, why not until now? _Why,_ he thought on every breath pulled down hard to his drowning lungs as he felt like he was going to die, suffocate on his own longing  just from the feel of Dean's tongue on his two fingers, on their tips.   _Why._

Where else could that tongue, that hot, soft, tongue, touch, and what would it feel like there?

Cas shivered, imagining. He shivered, in Dean's mouth.  Dean's tongue wet on his neck.  On his chest, rough on his nipples, his hips, the line of bone there.  Between his toes.  Lapping at the soles of his feet.  In the crease of his crotch, moist and humid.  On his cock.  Wrapped all around it.  Dean held slave, his tongue on Castiel's body forever.

Dean felt the response of Castiel's body _._ Felt the vibration against his tongue. _So innocent.  My Cas,_ he thought. _My angel.  So shivery, silvery, sparkling, for me.  Gonna show him what it can be.  Gonna show him what it can mean.  Gonna make him feel so good._ That thought felt warm withinDean, in his stomach, warm and joyful.  That he could make Castiel feel good.  That Castiel would let him.  Even if it was only in a dream. That he could make up in the fields of his imagination for how he had failed his angel in life.  

Still staring directly into Castiel's eyes, hopeful, penitent, Dean released Castiel’s second finger, dipped his chin, and took both fingers into his mouth at once.

Castiel gasped.  A single, sharp, inhale.  If this body had a voice, in the dream, it would have _moaned._

This time, Dean did not only touch, not only just the first knuckle, not only dry and delicate.  This time he took both fingers entirely into his mouth, as deep as he could, until they knocked at the back of his throat; he took them all.  He took them and made them wet and slick with his saliva, hot with the heat of his mouth.  He wrapped his lips around them and he sucked, heavy and humid, and he rolled his tongue, around, and around, and between and around.  Making them slicker.  Wetter.  Hotter.  Holding Castiel’s gaze still, still like a hawk, and watching the irises vanish into black.

Castiel was fighting just to bear it.  To keep himself separated from the dream and not bring his whole body, his whole grace, his wings, his halo, all of him, everything that he was, and engulf Dean in himself, in his light, the way his fingers were engulfed in Dean's mouth.  

Castiel _wanted._

He wanted _more_.  More of Dean's mouth.  

He took it.  

Castiel of the Lord took what he wanted.  Maybe for the first time _ever,_ there in that field, Castiel took what he wanted, and it was Dean Winchester's hot, wet, perfect, beautiful mouth.  He fucked his fingers into Dean's mouth, and he dragged them out slow.  Again, and again, fascinated by Dean's lips dragging over his knuckles, the coolness of the air outside of Dean's mouth on his saliva wet skin.  He practiced, curious, motions, in and out, and his thumb rose up to touch the corner of Dean's stretched lips.  

He gave a third finger, slowly, hesitantly, questioning, _can I._ And Dean held his eyes and showed him, _Yes. Yes,_ and his third finger was in Dean's mouth.   _Dean took it,_ took that finger into his mouth so eagerly, no resistance, just heat, and warmth like an embrace.  Dean opened himself up and held himself there, mouth steady and wide, so Castiel could use him, use his mouth.  He gave it over to make Castiel feel good.  He gave it over with such trust, gave his mouth over with thin coronas of green barely visible around black irises locked on Castiel like he was the sun and Dean wanted to go blind.

Dean looked at Castiel like he was the sun, and _he was the sun._ Made of light, made of fire, of power that can give life or destroy.  

Four fingers.  Thrust deep.

Dean had a body, and it was not bound by the rule of the dream like Dean's heart, and his brain.  It moaned.  It moaned deep, dark, embarrassing, even, so much want pent up for so long.  His face flushed red, as that moan hung on the air.

 _Beautiful,_ Castiel thought, and wished he were brave enough to say it.  He tried to show it in his eyes.  He tried to show it when he did not pull away, but instead started fucking Dean's mouth with his fingers:  harder, longer, because all he wanted was to hear that sound again.  That beautiful, broken, hopeless, sound.  He would not have thought a _sound_ could effect his body so profoundly, make his skin flush and prickle needle sharp behind his neck, make his cock harden a warm throb with every pulse of his heart.  But it did.  Oh, it did.  And he wanted it again.  

Dean's eyes watered, but he took Castiel’s fingers, every thrust.  He took them deep.  He let Castiel fuck his face with four fingers, he let his chin grow slick with saliva, he let Cas’ blunt nails scrape the roof of his mouth, the soft skin in his cheeks.  He took them and let them thrust in to him and he wanted _more._ So much more.  It was not enough.   _Of course_ it was not enough.  

He wished Castiel were fucking him with his cock, too, filling him up at both ends, hot and tight and inescapable.  He wished it was Castiel's cock in his mouth instead of his fingers.  God, his _fingers_ tasted so good, his cock would be so… It would be so hot, and heavy, in his mouth, it would stretch him out, fill him up, he would _choke_ on it, he would...

He moaned again.  Longer, harder, his face and neck all red now.  He moaned and palmed his cock, aching in his jeans.  He moaned and he took Castiel's fingers deeper, wanting more, more, more.  More of Castiel.  Always more.  Never enough.

Castiel stiffened, beside him, the bare skin on his torso shining with sweat.  He stiffened, and exhaled a high, voiceless, cry.  

Dean pulled off Cas’ fingers and opened his mouth to ask “Cas, what's wrong, are you OK?” rule of the dream be damned, but before the first sound came out, Castiel was gone.  

Dean waited there, in the field, for the rest of the night, longing, praying “Cas, I'm sorry, I don't know what's wrong, please come back.  Please.”

But Castiel did not come back before morning broke.

*****

_Dead leaves and the dirty ground when I know you're not around_

In the morning, Dean prayed.  His heart was so sore, from lying in that field alone until morning.  Lisa held him close, and kissed his shoulder, but her arms were too small, and soft, and her voice was too high, when she said _Good morning,_ and his eyes looked right through her and when she released him his heart still ached.  

His heart…raw and spinning, tumbling around inside him until it was dried out, bloodless, and so, so, sore, and full of _longing_.  His heart found, and then lost again.  Cas was dead.  Cas was alive, in his dreams.  Cas ran from him, and he didn't know why.  

He wished, he wished there was anything _, anything_ he could do to keep Cas with him.  He would do it.  Anything.  Anything to ease his poor, sore, heart.  To not have to feel _this._ To never feel this, ever again.  But there wasn't.  He would swear an oath later.  He would swear it with his blood.  He would swear it with his blood and the walls in Hell would crack.  But not yet.

Instead, he prayed.

_Cas, buddy, I don't know if you're up there or… or if I'm just gonna be a fly buzzing in your dick brothers’ ears. Guess I don't care anymore, if that's all I get.  I just… If that really was you, last night, I don't know what I did wrong, to make you leave like that.  Did I hurt you?  I would never hurt you Cas, never.  Were you… Were you afraid?  Was it too much too fast, did I push you?  I'm sorry, Cas, I just… you… For so long…  I should have told you, long before now.  Maybe then, you wouldn’t have been afraid.  Maybe then, you wouldn’t have had to run.  This year, it’s been so hard, without you… And I've missed you, so much, and needed... And so last night I wanted… I WANTED, I wanted everything, everything from you, but you didn't have to, you don't have to do anything ever, just because I want to… So I'm sorry for that, too, if I took too much, if I took anything you didn't want to give.  You can tell me ‘No’, Cas.  You can always tell me ‘No.’ I would never… Tell me ‘No,’ but don't leave me, please.  Please.  Please come back to me and don't leave me again._

_Um.  Amen._

It hurt his body to roll out of bed, but he did.  He rolled out of bed and he drank some water and he packed his lunch and he went to work.  He let the hard labor of the construction site distract his body.  He hid away, in the corner of his mind, so that he didn't feel the burn of muscles, he didn't feel the sun on his bare neck, he didn’t feel anything at all.  He pounded nails.  He leveled boards.  He moved his body, and didn't listen to his sore heart.

Until lunchtime.  Then, his body slowed.  Then, he felt the sun, beating down on his back.  He felt the dig of his helmet against his temple.  He was uncomfortable, sitting on a concrete slab, sweating, but he did not comfort himself.  He did not move for the shade, for cool water, for a chair.  He stayed on his hard, baking hot slab and he ate his peanut butter and jelly sandwich dry, though it tasted like ash.  He did not reach for comfort.

Instead, he prayed.

_Where'd you go, Cas?  Did you go back to Heaven?  Were you ever really with me, at all?  Why couldn't you stay, with me?  The sun was out, we were safe.  We had all night.  We didn't have to… We didn't have to do anything.  You coulda just laid there with me and drawn on my stomach like you did before, remember that?  That felt so good. Or, I thought that felt good.  I thought you did, too, even though you couldn't talk, I thought, your hands were so... And your eyes…. No one has ever touched me like that, Cas, so careful, so I thought… I thought you..._

_So we coulda just done that-- I would have been happy-- or not even that much, if you didn't want to.  You coulda… you coulda walked around, and told me about the flowers.  I would have liked that, to hear your voice.  Or if you didn’t want to talk you coulda just laid there, too, the ground was soft.  We didn’t even have to be touching.  As long as you were there, as long as I could see you.  That’s what matters.  That’s what matters to me, being able to see you, knowing that you are OK, or being able to pretend that you are, even just for a night, even just in a dream.  It's better, when you're there, than when I have to lay in that field alone.  Do you believe me?  It's better.  I want you to know that._

_I just… It's a nice field, there's flowers there, and no monsters, it's better than almost all of my dreams, for sure, but… I wish you were there, all the time.  I wish you could have stayed.  Why couldn't you stay?  I don't even know if you're real, if I'm praying out into nothing, but… I wish you had stayed.  I always wish for you to stay.  Do you know_ **_that_ ** _?  I hope you do.  I_ **_always_ ** _wish for you to stay.  I shoulda told you..._

An air horn sounded on the construction site.  Lunch over.  Dean put the uneaten half of his sandwich back in his lunch box and stood, brushing dirt and gravel from his hands and his jeans.  Brushing the beginnings of tears from his dusty face, before they could make a trail.  

He adjusted his hard hat tighter on his head, though he already had a headache, and he went back to work.  Subdued and silent, for the rest of the day, not answering the jokes and requests of his crew members with more than a nod until they left him to his melancholy and the air horn sounded again for the end of the shift.  

The sun was setting, red and orange on the horizon, by then, and it was beautiful.  Dean wanted it to be night time so badly, but he was afraid of how sore his heart would be in the morning if he lay all night in that field alone, again.

He drove home, ate dinner, washed the dishes, watched TV too late, all like a zombie, Lisa pretending that she didn't notice, that everything was fine, carrying the weight of conversation for two, while Dean was barely present, his heart and his mind already back in that field, or still there, never having left the night before.  And in bed, when Lisa lay already sleeping sweetly beside him, breath soft and unburdened, Dean stared mute up at the ceiling, detached, so unsure about what the night would bring, or even what he wanted it to bring.  

The moon cast pale sheets and ceiling alike in a lilac tone as it moved across the night sky.  Dean lay awake, arm under his head, shadows cast in hard, straight lines on his face from the panes on the bedroom window glass.  Shadows that shifted as the moon rose and began to set, and Dean lay awake, still.  He wanted to sleep, but he could not, there were too many thoughts inside his head and his heart was too sore.

Instead, he prayed.

_Were you real, Cas?  Were you really there, or did I only dream you?  Would you come to me, if you were alive?  Would I matter to you, anymore?  Or would you stay in Heaven, in your true form, size of the Sears Tower or whatever, just… In the clouds, or the stars, or whatever it's like there, with no humans to fuck things up?  With no me, to fuck things up?  Would you come to me, or could that only ever be a dream?_

_I would want you to come for me.  You should know that.  I would want you to… This, what I have here, what I have now, it's nice, it’s safe, but it hurts, all the time, too.  It's empty.  I would want_ **_you_ ** _.  If you were real, if you were alive.  If you're there, if you hear this, don't think that I've moved on,  Don't think that I've forgotten you, because I haven't, I think about you every goddamned day.  Don't think that I ever could forget about you, no matter how long you were gone.  Don't think that I would ever stop wanting you to come for me._

He pauses.  Lisa turns over, beside him.  Not touching him.  The sheets cool, and crisp.  There are tears on his face.  They are warm and wet.  He doesn't brush them away.  He wants to close his eyes, and go back to that field.  But not if Cas won't be there.

Instead, he prays.

_I was raking leaves last week.  I was thinking of you.  Wishing that I could have given myself up to Lucifer, gone in your place.  Wishing that it was you that was still alive instead of me.  Because you’re important, Cas.  You’re brave, and you’re strong, and you’re… and I… and you’re important.  More than I’ll ever be.  It was hard, thinking about that.  That I'm still here and you’re gone, that I’m still here and Sam’s gone, and there’s nothing I can do about it.  There were a couple of leaves left and I just couldn’t catch them; I couldn’t get them into the fucking pile, because I couldn’t concentrate on being just here, in my yard, raking leaves, when you are gone.  You should have been forever, you deserved to be forever, and you’re gone.  So I couldn’t rake up the fucking leaves._

_And then there was a moment… just a moment.  It was already sunny, but there was this moment like the sun came out from behind the clouds.  The leaves were redder, I could see them.  It was like the grass was growing at my feet.  Nothing ever grows, where I go, it only ever dies.  But this grass… it was growing.  And the sun came out, and I could feel it, for a second I wasn’t so goddamned numb, I wasn’t this block of ice, I could feel the sun on my skin and it was warm._

_Was that you?_

_I would want you to come for me, Cas, I would always… I would want…_

He drifts to sleep, that way.  Thinking about what the sun felt like on his neck as he raked his leaves.  Thinking about Cas coming for him.  Thinking about how to tell Cas, so that he would understand.  It wasn’t quite comfort, but it was close enough to help his eyes close and sink into rest.

He dreamed of the field again.  But it was empty.  It was still bright, the earth was still soft on his back and the breeze was still warm over his skin, rustling the grass, his hair.  But it was empty, and the flowers seemed like they drooped a little.  They seemed like their petals were fading a little, fading away from the outside edge in.  Turning black.  It was bright in the field, but Dean felt like he was turning black, too.  All night, he lay in the field, and ran his fingers through the long grass at his sides, and stared up at the sun waiting for an angel to spiral down out of Heaven.  

But Castiel never came.

That’s how Dean knew that Castiel wasn’t real.  Wasn’t really alive, wasn’t visiting his dreams.  Because he didn’t believe that Castiel could have heard his prayers, could have heard him confess, beg for Castiel to come for him and never leave him again, please, please, and not come to him.  He didn’t believe it.  He knew Castiel was an angel and he knew angels were dicks but he didn’t think Castiel could ever be that cold.  Not _his_ angel.  Not the one that gripped him tight.  

The next day was worse; his heart was even sorer, but he didn’t pray.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part one of "Cas watches Dean rake leaves." 
> 
> Hoooooooo boy.
> 
> I ended up deciding to post the first half of this, since the chapter was getting loonnnggggggg. So here is a Dean-pining-for-Cas angst-fest for your enjoyment! There’s still a second half to come, where we get to see Cas' reaction to Dean's prayers (and silence) in Heaven. This will be the 100 pages of pining after Cas Watched Dean Rake Leaves that we all deserve!
> 
> \----
> 
> Warning for non-consensual touching of Cas by a Demon in this chapter.
> 
> \----
> 
> On tumblr I am brainheartpizza (https://www.tumblr.com/blog/brainheartpizza). I post un-edited excerpts between AO3 updates.


	15. In Your Lungs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I called you ‘Mine’?” Castiel whispers, against Dean's skin.
> 
> “Yeah,” Dean replies, breathless, dizzy with Castiel’s kisses, drunk with them. 
> 
> “And you wanted it?” Castiel asks, still unbelieving, wanting to be sure.
> 
> “Wanted it so much all the lights exploded, Cas. Wanted you.”
> 
> “You are mine,” Castiel replies, tracing his fingers over the lace of bruises around Dean's neck.
> 
> “Yes.”

_Soft hand and a velvet tongue_  
_I want to give you what you give to me_  
_And every breath that is in your lungs_  
_Is a tiny little gift to me_  
_Is a tiny little gift to me_  
_\--_ Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground, The White Stripes  
  
\----2012: After the defeat of Lucifer----

 

_ If you can hear a piano fall you can hear me coming down the hall  _

 

Castiel was humiliated when he fled Dean’s dream of the fields of Eden and returned to Heaven.  He was humiliated, and confused, and he was disgusted with himself and he didn’t know what to do.  

_ I never should have gone to him _ , he thought, as he landed in a cloud over the darkest part of Earth’s night, where he could be surrounded by blue-black sky and stars so far away that they could not see him cry.  He buried himself inside the cloud, cold and damp and dark.  He wrapped it around himself, bound his feet and legs and arms and covered his shamed face.   _ Stupid, stupid.  I should have known.  I should have known I could never go to him without… taking too much.   _

He folded his wings, and floated, there, feet pointed downward, towards earth, head bobbing, eyes closed, in the dark.  Waiting for his body to cool down, calm down.  Waiting for his heartbeat to return to normal.  Using grace to clean away the evidence of his body’s treachery, of his…  _ orgasm _ .  

_ How could you _ , he asked himself.   _ How could you let yourself react like… that.  It wasn’t supposed to be about that.  It wasn’t for your carnal pleasure.  You are an Angel of the Lord, not some demon, some incubus that cannot control its wants.  You were supposed to make sure that Dean was safe.  You were supposed to try to comfort him.  Not orgasm on your trenchcoat while you spied on him in his room in the night like some kind of pervert.  If he knew… if he knew what you’d done, that you’d violated him that way…. _ Castiel’s body racked in a sob, and he cried out, though he tried to silence himself, as a tear slipped from his eye.   _ You can’t do that again.  You can’t go back to him.  To be sure that this wouldn't happen again, there would have to be a new rule.  You’d have to only look at him, and not let him see you, and never touch... Unbearable.  That would be unbearable.  Better to stay away.  You can’t... _

And then, as if being able to sense the absolute  _ worst possible time for his presence _ , Gabriel appeared.  Followed shortly thereafter by Balthazar.  

“Go away,” Castiel told them, face and eyes covered by his wings, by wisps of cloud woven cold around him.  By the dark.

“Sure, absolutely, no problem, 100%, we’ll go away, NBD, of course.” Gabriel rolled his eyes at Balthazar, then continued:  “Right after you tell us  _ what the fuck happened.” _

“No.”  

Balthazar took a step forward, so he was in front of Gabriel, between him and Castiel’s floating body.  He gave Gabriel a dirty look, and attempted a more delicate approach.  

“Cassie, darling… what’s wrong?  You're hurting, dear heart, and it’s hurting all of us.  Gabriel may be a recalcitrant boor,” Gabriel’s turn for a dirty look, here, followed by a shrug of acceptance--he knows himself, “But we just want to help you.  Why are you hurting?  And why is your flannel-covered-plaything praying that he’s sorry, why is he begging you ‘please’?  Can you tell us, dear heart?  Can you let us help you?”  

“No.”

Balthazar sighed, and stepped back.  He and Gabriel looked at each other, trying to decide what to do next.  Balthazar was thinking that maybe there wasn’t anything else to say, and that they should just leave Castiel alone, as that was clearly what Castiel wanted. But Gabriel was not even close to giving up yet.  He screwed up his face, determinedly, and marched over to where Castiel was floating, high-stepping through wisps of cloud that tried to wrap around his knees.  

When he was close enough, he reached out and pulled Castiel’s wings apart right where they crossed over his face.  He immediately wished he hadn't; Castiel’s face was covered in tears and broken apart from crying.  He let the wings snap back together.  

Gabriel pulled the collar of his jacket out from his neck, slightly ashamed.  “Sorry, bro, I just…” he stammered at Castiel’s closed wings. “Hey, you don’t have to say anything to us, OK, but let’s go somewhere else?  Somewhere, I dunno, less dark and emo and depressing?  Somewhere Balthie and I can just kind of hang out, you know, keep an eye on you, make sure you’re not alone, make sure you’re ok, not like, cutting yourself with your blade and letting your grace leak out because you’re so sad like Luci used to in his Goth phase?  Is that OK?”

“No.”  

Castiel didn’t want to go somewhere else.  He didn’t want to go somewhere comfortable and warm and lit up bright where Gabriel would slap him on the back and tell him absurd, repulsive stories, and Balthazar would hug him and smile at him and offer him a glass of brandy.  He wanted his brothers to go away.  He wanted to stay here, where it was dark and cold and where he could be alone in his humiliation.  That’s what he wanted.  That’s what he deserved.  

Gabriel sighed an overly dramatic sigh, and collapsed backwards, a red leather couch appearing just in time to catch him.  He mouthed up at Balthazar  _ Worse than I thought.   _ Balthazar nodded in agreement, and summoned his own couch, black velvet, along with a highball of scotch.  He sat down and arranged himself with ankle crossed over knee and his arm over the back, and mouthed back at Gabriel  _ Boy trouble _ .

Gabriel nodded slowly, in agreement, thoughtful.  They all sat in silence for a minute or two, Balthazar sipping his scotch, Gabriel peering angrily up at the empty ionosphere, dancing his index fingers back and forth to help him think, Castiel sniffling behind his wings.  

“Kali never begs,” Gabriel said finally, crossing his legs and settling into his couch.  He summoned his own glass of scotch.  

Castiel doesn’t rise to the bait, so Balthazar replies.  “What?”  

“Kali never begs.  If she pisses me off and I peace out to Heaven or if I freak out and bail in a flurry of commitment phobia, she never begs.  She’d rather never see me again than have to say ‘Please.’”  

“I know what you’re doing Gabriel.  I’m not a child,” Castiel says gruffly, not letting go of the wisps of cloud twined around him, not letting his wings slip an inch.

“‘Course not.  You’re a very mature angelic adult who is hiding in a cloud over who-the-fuck-knows-where Earth and refusing to talk about what's bothering him.   _ Very  _ mature  11/10, would mature again.  Doesn’t matter.  I’m not talking to you.  I’m talking to Balthazar.  We’re having a drink.”  He reaches out the hand holding his highball, and he and Balthazar clink their glasses together.       

As if to confirm this, Balthazar next responds to Gabriel’s part of the conversation, ignoring Castiel completely:  “I’ve had the acquaintance of a number of lovely gentleman who have begged me quite prettily… but only when I had them in… compromising positions.  Never after I left them.  Never in prayer.” He looks down at his glass, then up at Gabriel.  “People, they pray  _ to _ me, they beg “Balthazar, please heal my daughter,” they beg “Balthazar, please, please, end this war,” they beg “Please, Balthazar, let me live long enough that I can see my home again, one more time.” Let me get the promotion, get the girl, win the game.  But I can’t say I’ve ever had anyone beg  _ for _ me.  Not just for  _ me _ , for my presence.  I wonder what that feels like.”  

Gabriel raises his glass and his eyebrows.  He doesn't know what that feels like, either.  All his long years, all the powers of the firmament, and he doesn't know what it feels like.

Balthazar takes a sip of his scotch, and looks thoughtful.  “I wonder if I’d be able to resist it, that kind of prayer.  A prayer  _ for me _ .  I’m not certain that I could, to be truthful.  And if it were my charge, and I were in love with him…” he takes another sip, swirls around the ice in his glass.  “I’m weak, Gabby, you know that.  I can’t resist a pair of green eyes.  I’d probably give in.  Give him what he wanted.  Whatever it was.”    

“Go away,” Castiel says again, miserably, though this time he seems deflated, and there is less bite behind it.  His wings start to sag, until the most mussed tip of his tousled hair is just visible, but then they snap up in front of his face again.

“Have any of them ever loved you?” Gabriel asks Balthazar, ignoring Castiel.  “Any of your lovely gentlemen?”  

Balthazar looks distantly over the rim of his glass.  “I don’t think so.”  He takes a sip, and swishes it around his mouth, tasting it, for a long second.  “I don’t think so,” he repeats, and sounds resigned.  “I think they’ve loved my power, or that I was an angel, or how I could make them feel.  I don’t think they’ve ever loved  _ me _ though.  Or if they tried, I never let them.”  

“You never let them?”  

“If they tried, I ran away.  Fucked off to some cloud, in Heaven.  Though, usually, mine had a bar.  I’m not a barbarian.”  He looks pointedly at Castiel, though Castiel’s wings are still covering his face and he doesn’t see it.  Gabriel chuckles.  

“I’m too… I’m not built, for that.  I see humans fall in love sometimes, really fall in love, and I don’t think I could do it, I don’t even understand it.  I don’t think I know how.  I don’t think I  _ can _ .  I’m too detached, from them.  I think the best I can do is just,” he raises his glass.  “... fuck, you know?”  

Gabriel nods.  “I hear you, bro.  I’ve known Kali for a million years, but that’s all we’ve ever done.  Fuck.  I think she’d… if she had to cut my balls off, to answer the call of one of her followers, she’d do it.  She’d do it.  That bond would matter more, to her, than anything she and I have between us.  I wouldn’t really blame her, either.  Dad knows I come running back upstairs every time one of the brethren sounds that fucking horn.”  

Balthazar takes this in, finger tapping against the crystal rim of his glass.  “And humans?”

“Bah,” Gabriel says, swigging down what’s left in his glass and tossing it carelessly over his shoulder where it disappears before it hits the ground.  “Too puny.  They die so fast, so easy.  I can barely keep track of them.  Except…” His eyes turn inward.

“Except?” prompts Balthazar.

“ _ Except _ maybe Moose Winchester… that one… hard to kill and hung like a horse.  I’d hit that in a Wisconsin Minute, but then again…  it’d be weird banging my bro’s boyfriend’s bro, you know?”  

“Don’t talk about Sam like that,” Castiel says, peeking out from between his wings.  

Gabriel looks over his shoulder at Castiel.  “Oh, what, now you’re joining the conversation?  Am I wrong?  Is Moose not hard to kill?  Does he not have a gargantuan dick?”  

Balthazar tries to keep a serious face.  “Yeah, Cassie, you’ve slummed around in the Brothers Plaid’s living quarters long enough to know--steamy showers and towels around all American hips and all that--but you've been hogging the details all to yourself.  Naughty. Who’s packing what?  I bet Green Eyes--”  

Castiel flaps his wings down, hard, and reaches out the tip of one to slap Balthazar’s glass out of his hand.  He doesn’t make it disappear, he lets it break into shards in a sharp crash against an unseen wall.  “Don’t talk about Dean, like that.”  

Balthazar’s mouth flaps open and shut like a fish’s.  Gabriel steps in smoothly, and takes up the cause. “Why not, baby bro?  He’s never gonna hear.  Balthie and I won’t say a peep, right Balthie?”  

Balthazar manages to close his mouth, make a lip zipping gesture, and mime tossing away the key.

“And  _ you’re _ never gonna tell him, right?  You’re fully committed to ignoring his pining--despite, might I interject, the fact that it  _ substantially  _ disrupts my beauty rest --and wallowing in your own misery until one of you --probably him -- dies in some gruesome, heroic,  _ unnecessary  _ clusterfuck of your own making, right?  That’s why you’re up here, isn’t it?  All stoic faced and ‘go away Gabriel’ this and ‘don’t talk about my boyfriend’s cock, Gabriel’ that. Lord Dad, if I had a nickel for every time--”

“Shut UP Gabriel!  Shut UP shut UP shut UP, SHUT UP.  Celestial Father, do you EVER shut up for one SECOND?”      

Gabriel stops short, with his lips in an O, joining Balthazar’s school of silent fish.  Balthazar looks back and forth between Castiel, Gabriel, Castiel again, eyebrows raised at Castiel's outburst but no words coming to him to use in response.  

Gabriel’s mouth snaps shut with a click of teeth on teeth.  He raises his eyebrows, and gestures expansively with both arms at Castiel.   _ By all means, _ his gesture says.   _ Do enlighten us regarding how we should discourse about the Brothers Winchester.   _

Castiel drops his wings, finally, with a sigh, and releases the wisps of cloud that were wrapped around him.  He sinks down heavily, so that he is standing on cloud, instead of floating, and walks over to Balthazar’s couch with tired steps.  He sits down.  He puts his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.  Balthazar and Gabriel look at each other, over Castiel’s bent back.  

He lets it out in short sentences, breathy, just barely audible, talking into his knees.  Long pauses between them as he gathers himself.  Gabriel and Balthazar do not interrupt, but Gabriel thinks  _ very hard. _

“Dean was longing for me.”

_ We all felt it. _

“It hurt my chest.  I didn't understand why.”

_ Because you have never been in love before.  Because none of us have. _

“I tried to ignore it.  I thought he was happy and it would ruin him if he knew I was alive.”

_ You didn't really think that.  You were afraid. _

“But eventually it just hurt too much.  So I went to check on him.  Just only to make sure he was OK!” This last with more emotion, delivered with Castiel's eyes wide, head raised from his knees, imploring his brothers to understand some nuance of this part of the confession that they did not.  

They tilt their heads to the sides, Balthazar confused-- _ you don't need a reason to see your charge, especially if he is hurting, and we all know Lovely Eyes was hurting-- _ Gabriel scheming, trying to work it out-- _ why ELSE would you go see him?  For sex?  Do you really think we would judge you for going to him for sex? Someone that hot?  That you’ve been eye fucking for years, no matter how inappropriate the situation? _  But they do not interrupt.

_ “ _ He wasn’t OK.” Now whispering again, head bowed again, the saddest sound yet.

_ We know.  We felt it.  We cried for you, and prayed to the Absent Father. _

“I wanted him to be ok, but he wasn’t.  He needed me.  He wasn’t happy.”

_ He never will be, without you.   _

“So I went to him in his dream.”

_ Ah,  _ Balthazar thought.   _ This is how it went wrong.   _ And  _ What did Green Eyes dream about you, little bro,  _ thought Gabriel.

“A couple of times, I went, and it was OK. I didn’t talk to him.”

_ It wasn't OK.  It hurt you to see him, and not be seen back.  Nothing hurts more, than that.  It made you desperate.  That's how we got here. _

“We just lay in the Garden, together, those times, we were together.  It was so beautiful.   _ He  _ was so beautiful, he was  _ everything.   _ His eyes, and his skin, and his body… even the smell of him in the grass, and the beat of his heart.  Flowers bloomed up all around us, they were fragrant, and the earth was soft beneath.  The sun in his eyes, like jewels, like gold, like everything precious.  Everything that is precious, to me.”

Castiel gasps, anguished, as he continues.  “It was so perfect.   _ He  _ was so perfect.  Why couldn't I just let it be, why did I have to risk taking more?  Why couldn't I just lay there, and be with him?” His voice heavy with tears, and his hands gripping his hair.  

_ Because it will never be enough of him, for you, you poor sorry son of a bitch.  Never.  No matter how much you get.   _ Gabriel understood this.  He had seen them look at each other, Dean and Castiel.  He had seen Castiel turn his back on the Host, and he had known why.  Uriel, Zachariah, Naomi, they didn't understand, but Gabriel did.  Gabriel had not been surprised, when Castiel rebelled.

Castiel is able to soothe himself enough to go on.  “I didn’t talk to him.  I made that rule.  I thought it would protect me.  If I couldn't speak, I couldn't confess.”

_ You confess with your eyes every time you look at him.  But his eyes are confessing too, so they do not see. _

“But I didn't realize how much could be confessed by touch alone.”

_ My brother Castiel, the only actual Virgin in all of Heaven.  Fuck. _

_ “ _ And then this last time, I touched him--” Castiel’s breath hitches on a new sob.  “I touched him and the way it felt... and his  _ mouth,  _ and he made this  _ sound _ .”  

_Here we go_.   _Now we’re getting to the good part._ Balthazar leans forward on his couch, attentive.

_ “ _ He felt so  _ good  _ and that  _ sound _ , it was like he was  _ dying _ .  Dying for me, dying because it felt so good, dying because he wanted more.  I had to hear it again, I had to make him feel that way, I HAD TO.”  

“Oh, Cassie,” Balthazar whispers, and places his open palm softly on Castiel’s back.  “Of course you did.”

“So I… I… and he made that sound again, and I… I…”

Gabriel makes a finger rolling “Get on with it” gesture that Castiel doesn’t see from where his head is cradled in his hands, but says nothing.  

“It was so beautiful.  It wasn’t crass, like you are making it out to be.  It was  _ so beautiful _ .  It was like the Creation.  It was perfect, it was everything.  It was life and the fire of the stars and the swell of the ocean.  And I… I… it was too much for me.  I… I…” His voice becomes almost silent, and wretched.  “I came.”  

“Oh, dear,” Balthazar says consolingly, and rubs his hand on Castiel’s back.  “What did your paramour say, then?”

“Nothing.  I don’t know.  Nothing.  I flew right here.  I didn’t wait to find out.  It was so humiliating.”  

Gabriel and Balthazar look each other.  Gabriel raises his hand out to Balthazar.   _ It’s all you. _  He knows himself, he can’t run with this in a productive manner.  Because  _ Castiel _ , the Lord Dad’s most special angel of actuarial tables and Thursdays,  _ came in his pants _ just from Dean Winchester’s sex noises.  Nope.  NopeNopeNope.  Gabriel can’t touch that one with a ten foot pole, if he wants to walk out of here alive.  

Balthazar loves his brother, and he does his best.  

“He still needs you, Cassie.  Didn’t you hear his prayer?  As soon as you left?  ‘I'm sorry, I don't know what's wrong, please come back.  Please.’  You didn’t do anything wrong.  He wants you back.  He  _ needs you _ .  Maybe more now than he did before.  He's going to need to know that he didn't hurt you, or scare you.  He's going to be afraid that… Whatever you did together, you didn't want it, and that's why you ran off.  You know him, Castiel, you know that he will blame himself.”

“‘S a cold move, bro.  Leaving a guy hanging like that,” Gabriel adds, for his part.

“I couldn’t look him in the eyes.” Castiel says, miserably.  “I couldn’t.  I can’t.  Not after that.”  

“Look, for sure, this situation isn’t  _ ideal _ ,” Gabriel says, sitting up and leaning forward.  “But--”

He never finished what he was about to say.  Because that’s when Dean prayed his first prayer, still lying in bed, just woken from his dream of an empty field, over on a part of Earth far in the distance where the light was just starting to turn pink.  All three angels fell silent.  Listening.

... _ Please come back to me and don't leave me again. _

Castiel and Balthazar had tears in their eyes by the time it was done, but Gabriel seemed agitated, shifting in his seat.  “Well, there you have it, brosef.  Could he have made it any clearer?  He’s not mad at you, he’s not disgusted, he’s taking it out on himself,  _ per usual _ and he  _ wants you back _ .  Is that enough, to get it through your thick skull?  Will you go back to him, now?”

Castiel cast his eyes down to the cloudy ground, in shame.  “I can’t.”  

Balthazar and Gabriel shared a sad look.   _ These fuckers.  These two fuckers. _  Then Balthazar threw his arm around Castiel and feigned levity.  “Come on Cassie, come with us to one of the bars.”  There are a  _ lot  _ of bars in Heaven.  “Come let us get you phenomenally drunk.  Don’t stay here sulking.  Please?”  

“Yeah, come on bro.  I’ll tell you that story about how I ended up fucking that psychadelic frog in a log cabin in Delaware.  You love that story.”  

Castiel does not love that story.  But his brothers look at him with such hopeful eyes, that are clearly covering up such sadness, for him, that he cannot resist them.  “OK,” he gives in.  “OK,” and then as Gabriel raises his hand to snap his fingers, he specifies, “but NOT the bar with the were-panther strippers.”  

Gabriel’s face falls.  Balthazar looks at him in surprise.  There is a bar with half human half panther strippers in Heaven?  And Gabriel has taken Castiel there, but not him?  What?  

“Fine, fine, a boring bar with NO strippers.”  Gabriel pauses before snapping his fingers.  Castiel nods his head down once, in agreement, Gabriel’s fingers snap, and the cloud is left behind, empty of angels.  

 

*****

_ If I could just hear your pretty voice, I don't think I need to see at all  _

 

They drink.  Three brothers of Heaven, veterans of every war ever waged on Earth.  They drink.  The bar Gabriel takes them to isn't too bad, by Castiel's standards (if not by Balthazar’s).  It's reminiscent of the kind of bar where Sam and Dean would drink-- it serves beer and whiskey, vodka and ice water and not much else.  But it's a little nicer than Sam and Dean's haunts-- the beer smell isn't as strong, and the tabletops aren't as sticky.  The booths are made of real leather, and they don't have holes where the stuffing is spilling out.  There's a pink neon sign hanging over the bar, a foot high, that says “Gabe’s”.  Castiel doesn't think that's always there, but he doesn't care enough to mention it.

The place is empty, except for the bartender, who understands them perfectly but is either mute or just not talking.  Castiel doesn't care enough to ask about this, either.  He just wants a drink.  Vodka, because Dean rarely drinks that.  Because it is clear and it burns.  The bartender doesn't say a word to him, but looks him up and down, once, when he approaches the bar, and hands him a whole bottle.  Bottom shelf.  Castiel doesn't care about the provenance of his vodka.  He doesn't care that the bartender doesn't talk to him.  He doesn’t care that, for some reason, Gabriel is now wearing a leopard print bandana.  He doesn't care about anything but the memory of Dean's mouth, hot on his fingers, and his sadness --certainty -- that he will never feel it there again.

Gabriel hauls Cas in under his arm and drags him, pliant and unresisting, to a corner booth.  He leaves him there with Balthazar while he goes to put coins in a red and yellow lit juke box in the corner.  

Castiel drinks lukewarm vodka straight from the bottle, and stares down at the table as it trails fire down his throat, into his esophagus.  Balthazar drinks more slowly, from a glass with ice in it, conjured out of thin air, with no use for the silent bartender and his limited wares, and looks sadly at Castiel.   _ This is what my brother looks like, broken hearted.   _

When Gabriel comes back from the juke box he tells the Delaware story, even though Castiel and Balthazar have both heard it a hundred times and neither of them even liked it the first time.  Gabriel’s songs play out too loud in the empty bar:  You Shook Me, and Copa Cabana, and Never Gonna Give You Up.  Undaunted by their reaction to his first story, he tells them another one, where he claims that he is the inspiration both for the White Witch and Edmund in  _ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe _ \-- something about C.S. Lewis being religious and Gabe liking Turkish Delight and showy drag during WWI (“way before its time, Cassie.”)  None of it seems very plausible to Castiel, as he drinks his bottle of vodka down, swallow after determined swallow, until he doesn’t feel the burn any more.  

He doesn't respond to Gabriel’s absurd story telling, and Balthazar makes only absolutely the most perfunctory polite noises.  So, when the C.S. Lewis story is over, Gabriel doesn't start another one, instead staring down into his drink wordlessly and stirring the ice around with a tiny pink plastic stick loaded with Maraschino cherries, until the vinyl records on the juke box turn over and go quiet with empty clicks.  

Gabriel doesn't choose new songs.  

The bartender stands mute at the bar, polishing the same glass over and over with a soft cloth.

So it is silent in the bar when Dean bends his head and closes his eyes on the hot cement block at his construction site.  His prayer rings out like a crystal bell.

... _ I always wish for you to stay.  Do you know that?  I hope you do.  I always wish for you to stay. _

They all hear it, every word, and there is no pretending they didn't.  

Gabriel opens his mouth.   _ Are we going to talk about this?  _ He wants to ask.   _ Is this enough?  Are you going to go to him now, you stubborn son of a bitch?  Or does he have to slit his wrists and spell your name out in his blood on the tile of the bathroom floor? _

But he doesn't get a chance to speak.  “Don't,” Castiel says as soon as he sees Gabriel’s lips move.  “Don't.  I just… I can't.  I want to.  I want to so much...” He rubs long fingers over his face, into his hair.  “But I can't.” And then he looks away from Gabriel’s face, looks at his bottle of vodka, and takes a long swallow.  “I can't,” He says again, under his breath, enunciation still perfectly clear despite the fact that his bottle is half empty.  

“You  _ can,  _ love” Balthazar says gently.  “You can.  You  _ have to,  _ don't you see _?   _ It's what he wants.  Didn't you hear your poor charge, Cassie?  Wasn’t he clear enough, about what he wants?  He needs you.”

“I don't  _ have  _ to do anything,” Castiel replies, not looking up.  “And Dean doesn't… He wouldn't… If he knew…  No.  No.  I  _ can't _ .”

Gabriel and Balthazar, they can hear Dean's prayers and they can see the black misery pitted under Castiel's eyes, and they think:  this is so easy, so obvious; Cas should go to his charge.  It is why he was given over by the Father in the first place.  To save Dean.  To rescue him.  Not just once, but over and over and over again, whenever he needs it, timeless, forever.  That is what it means for an angel to have a charge.  That is what Castiel is denying Dean right now, they think.  It is not only selfish and pointless, it is blasphemous, too.  To ignore a charge’s call like that, in so much pain, and need, that could be answered.

Castiel and Dean would snap together like magnets, or puzzle pieces, they think, they would embrace and tears would flow and they would be as one. All would be well, all would be right.  All would be forgiven.  It is hard for them to understand why this  _ hasn’t _ happened before now, how Dean and Castiel have resisted it.  Resisted each other, when the force between them is so strong, electrical and snapping and burning anyone else that gets between them.  

But Gabriel and Balthazar don't feel the hot shame running up and down Cas’ spine, into his cheeks, needling his jaw.  They do not have charges of their own, and so they do not,  _ cannot  _ understand the failure of duty that Castiel committed when he went to Dean when he shouldn't have, distracted him from his happiness--his  _ real, earthly happiness -- _ spied on him, used his body for his own pleasure.  Castiel cannot allow himself to accept, or even imagine, that it was OK for him to have done any of those things.  He acted, for almost the first time, on his own volition, and look what it caused.  Dean suffering, violated.  Dean tearful, hurting, not taking care of himself, thirsty, stomach empty, skin hot and burning in the midday sun.  One touch from Castiel, and he was lost.

Castiel recriminates himself:  he should not have gone to Dean.  He should have left him alone, and then maybe, yes, Dean would feel hollow, or lonely when he rakes his leaves, but he would not feel this acute misery that he is now offering up in his prayers.  No.  That misery, every moment of it, every tug on Dean’s sore heart, is Castiel's to bear, to repent.  Because he could not stay away.  Because even silent, even with his rules, he took too much, revealed too much.  So he suffers guilt, and remorse, and shame, shame, shame.  And he vows he will do better, by his charge, now.  He will not make the same mistake.  He will stay away.  He will at least give Dean the  _ chance  _ to be happy again.

So he replies again to Balthazar.  “I can't.” He whispers, still staring down at the table.  “I can't.”

“You--” Balthazar starts to try again, but Castiel interrupts him.

“Be quiet, or leave.” This is not whispered.  This is commanded, by the warrior.

Gabriel opens his mouth again, closes it.  He stands up, and starts to pace with his fingers laced behind his head.  Balthazar stays at the table, and takes a deliberate, silent, drink, holding Castiel's eyes.  Castiel nods slightly in response.   _ You can stay.  Thank you. _

It is several hours on Earth until Dean lies in bed again, staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep, and offers up his third prayer, but that is hardly any time at all, for angels in Heaven.  Gabriel paces.  Balthazar drinks, slowly.  Castiel drinks, faster, desperately.  The bartender stands mute behind the counter, watching them all.

_...I would want you to come for me, Cas, I would always. _

Gabriel picks a glass up off the table nearest to where he paces and throws it at the wall, where it shatters.  Balthazar jumps at the sound, but Castiel is too far gone to even react.  

“Dammit, Cas, what's it gonna take,” Gabriel yells.  “Is there anything, anything on Dad's green Earth that is going to convince you to end this misery?  This completely bullshit, nihilistic,  _ self-imposed  _ misery?  Fucking…  _ FUCK!!!”  _ and he picks all the silverware up off the same table, and throws that against the wall, too.  It makes a satisfying clattering noise, and tumbles to the ground.

Castiel doesn't say anything in response to Gabriel’s outburst, but he pours a small volume of vodka out on the table, and begins to trace around in it with his finger.  

_ Great,  _ Gabriel thinks.   _ He's completely cracked _ .  But Balthazar, who is sitting close enough to see what Castiel is actually tracing, has a different reaction.

“Castiel!  Wait, don't, NO!”

Castiel doesn't listen, or even seem to hear him.  He slams his hand down on the sigil he drew out of vodka, and banishes his brothers.  

As the air swirls around in the empty spaces where Gabriel and Balthazar are suddenly  _ not,  _ Castiel takes a small drink.   _ Finally.  Quiet.   _

 

*****

For about 30 seconds, until Gabriel shows back up again, hair ruffled, jacket askew, missing one shoe.

“Dick move, bro,” he chastises.  “It's gonna take Ballz hours to get back here.  He was only trying to help.”

“I told you to be quiet,” Castiel says.

Gabriel, and later Balthazar, maintain their watch over Castiel doggedly, but remain silent, after that.

 

*****

The day with no prayers is worse.  

Castiel doesn't talk to Balthazar and Gabriel at all any more, no matter what they say or do, and although he doesn't try to banish them again, he doesn't look up at them or respond when they talk to him.  He only stares at the bottom of his bottle of vodka, and drinks with a steady, heavy, cadence. When there is no liquid left there, he gestures with his fingers and makes the bottle disappear, then stands and walks to the bar to get a replacement from the still mute bartender.  The bartender hands him over a full bottle of the same vodka, every time, silent.  

Gabriel asks Castiel why he goes through the whole exchange with the bartender, why he uses grace to make the bottle disappear instead of making it be full again.  Castiel doesn't answer, he doesn't answer anything.  

It is frustrating, but they are worried.  Castiel's brothers, they are worried, and they do not want to leave him.  They do not know what he might do.  

Gabriel gives up trying to get Castiel to talk before Balthazar does.  He throws his hands up in the air, and makes his same red leather couch from the cloud appear, along with a huge TV on an empty wall of the bar.  It flickers with static for one second, then starts playing Caddyshack.  Gabriel lies back, makes himself comfortable, and watches.

But Balthazar sits with Castiel, for a while longer.   _ He doesn't even know for sure that you're alive, sweet heart, that's probably why he stopped.   _

And.  _ Because he doesn't know for sure and you didn't answer him, and he wouldn't want  _ **_us_ ** _ \-- _ he looks over at Gabriel, laying in his couch  _ to hear him. Not prayers like that.   _

And.   _ You know what he wants, he told you what he wants, _

And.  Go  _ to him.  End this senseless misery for both of your sakes and go to him. _

But Castiel doesn't answer him, or even look up from his bottle.  He wants to say “Yes, ok.” He wants to say “I love him.  I need him.  I will go to him now, and, I swear it, I will never be parted from him again.” He wants to swear this and let his grace bleed and make it true.  He wants to band himself in gold again and spread his wings wide and show himself to Dean, descending like Apollo from the sun.  But he can't.  He  _ can't.   _ Not yet.

So eventually Balthazar gives up, and joins Gabriel on his couch, and makes him watch Eyes Wide Shut while Gabriel mutters “pretentious son of a bitch” not-so - under - his - breath every five minutes… Until the nudity starts.  Then:  “Ballz, why didn't you just tell me this was about fucked up sex parties???”

“Because I wanted you to watch the movie with me, not get your dick out like you did that time in Los Angeles when I took you to Midnight Cowboy.”

“That was  _ one time, one time,  _ and I wouldn't ‘get my dick out’ with our bro over there having a total meltdown.  What do you think I am, a savage?”

“One time is one time too many, Gabriel!!  The right number of times to take your dick out in front of your brother is zero!  Zero times!  Zero even if we do have to be brothers for all of eternity!”

“Oh, sure, ok, so was zero the right number when you had your naked glitter bubble New Year’s party and I walked in on you with your glitter covered dick down Alan Cummings’ throat???”

“You weren't invited to that party!!  There was a good reason you weren't invited to that party!  All of those guests hated you, and I wanted to fuck all of them!  You should have learned your lesson after the Bachannalia de Gallico!!”

“That was literally two thousand years ago!  You can't let it go?”

“Julius.  Caesar.  Julius Caesar, Gabriel, I could have fucked Julius fucking Caesar if you hadn't walked in there wearing that  _ stupid toga... _ ”

They bicker with each other over the entire movie, and over the entire next one (Gabriel's pick:   _Fletch),_ and the one after that (Balthazar’s:   _Mulholland Drive),_ and by then Castiel is so drowned in his vodka, and his sadness, that he completely loses track of them.

They lose track of him, too.  He sits so still, so silent, for so long, that they both tacitly assume they will be watching movies in the bar until Cas drinks so much they have to pick him up and carry him off to a nice cloud; take off his shoes and trenchcoat and tuck him in safe and put him to sleep.

That's why they don't notice when he disappears.  

As much as they thought that he should get over his fucking millstone anyway and just go to his charge, if they had noticed him leaving in the state he was in (dirty, drunk, red eyed from crying), they probably would have tried to stop him.  

 

*****

 

Two nights.  Two nights until Castiel returns at last to Dean.  One day of prayer, one day of silence.  Two days that felt longer than any of the past weeks, or months.  Two hard, hot, sore days.  

Castiel smells like vodka, and an unwashed body, when he returns.  He’s let his stubble grow out dark, and his hair is wild from running his fingers through it; pulling on it.  There are heavy circles under his eyes.  His coat is stained with alcohol, with ketchup Gabriel squeezed on him to try to get a reaction out of him, with blotches on the cuffs where he wiped tears, warm and salty, from his eyes.  So many tears.

His landing in the dark corner of Dean's room is unsteady; water glasses rattle on nightstands as he alights.  He throws a heavy blanket of grace on Lisa, immediately, and keeps her deep, deep, asleep, but Dean is already awake.  Dean is already staring at him with angry eyes, head rested on hands laced behind his neck.  Like he expected this.  Somehow.  Like somehow he knew that Castiel would come to him, stumbling, broken.

“Dean,” Castiel croaks out, voice rough from the alcohol, the silence; throat tight with pain, and sadness. His walls are gone.  His rule is gone.  Everything is gone.  Everything but this ache in his chest.  The ache that does not rest, but begs him to to go to Dean, to be near hm.  To touch him again.  The ache that is impossible.

“That you, Cas?”  Dean asks, voice quiet, deep and resigned.

“No,” Cas lies. “No, ‘S only a dream.” Another lie, slurred out, syllables broken on vodka.  A desperate lie.  Not told be believed.

And Dean does not believe it.  “Doesn't feel much like a dream.” His eyes pierce right through Cas when he says this.  They are worse than a sword.

Here he is; drunk enough and tired enough and beaten enough that his  _ longing  _ outweighs his  _ shame.   _ Here he is in Dean's room, Dean's eyes on him, and now is his chance to explain, to confess.  But though he imagined this chance a hundred times, a thousand, as he sat and drank in Heaven, now he just doesn't know what to say.  Not when Dean's eyes are on him like that, sharp and hard and dark with pain.  How can he say anything, to those eyes, how is there any hope of absolution, when he is the one that put that pain there.  

So:  “Dean,” Castiel repeats, weighing all the heavy words that he has to say; the explanations, the apologies.  The sins and the confessions.  There are four.  There are four crimes that he has made against Dean’s poor, sore, heart.  He tries to organize them in his mind, though they shift and static and buzz.  

One:  he came to Dean on Earth when he shouldn't have.  He wasn’t called, he wasn’t ordered, he had no place, but he came anyway and wrecked Dean’s chance at happiness.  Maybe his only chance, that he will ever have.  

Two:  he took Dean's mouth for his pleasure, fingers fucking his face and trying to make Dean cry out, and he came in his angel’s garment like a wild dog in rut.  He did not cherish, did not worship, did not lay holy hands unto Dean's body as his angel should.  

Three.  He left.  He just left.  When he should be the one that never leaves Dean, not ever.

Four.  The worst.  He didn't respond to Dean's prayers.  They were so beautiful, Dean's prayers.  They asked for always, and forever,  and his heart was on every word, beating red and alive and vulnerable.  But Castiel ignored them, and now Dean's heart is pale and bloodless and sore, instead.  This was not just bad friendship.  This was not just dereliction of duty.  This was  _ blasphemy,  _ for Castiel to ignore the heart-prayers of his charge, given faithfully, and drink mutely in Heaven instead.

He has to make it better.  He has to atone.  Even if it means he has to reveal all that he has long kept hidden.  Even if it means he has to break rules he hasn't even thought up yet.  He is in the wrong.  He has damaged his charge, hurt him, placed him danger.  He has to make it right.  It is his  _ duty _ , sacred, to make it right.  

He takes a step towards Dean, but stumbles.  And in his intoxication, he cannot find the way to stand back up.  His legs, his arms, they are water, and they twist, and the carpet underneath him rises and falls like the deck of a ship.  He fights, with himself, within the bondage of his trenchcoat, and he cannot rise.

He is still on the floor, when Dean speaks.

“I prayed to you, Cas.  I laid it all on the line.  But you left me hanging.”

Cas’ shame bursts up inside him like a fountain of neon, hot and bright.

He looks up, into Dean’s hurt eyes.  His voice is slow and sad when he replies.  “You prayed to me, Dean, my charge, and I heard you.” His eyes try to brighten into a glow as he says this, because these are the words of an angel.  But they sputter out, asphyxiated by his shame.  

“An’ I… I wanted… Wanted ‘ta give you everything you prayed for, with your truest heart.  Beautiful heart.  So beautiful... That is my charge, my duty, my privilege.  To give you everything, holding nothing back, even myself, until the end of time.” He gets lost on  _ everything  _ like he did on  _ beautiful _ , his vision blurring out and then snapping back into focus; the floor swaying underneath him again, if more gently.  He stares down, and tries to will it to stay still.

“Everything.  Everything.” Wrapping his mouth around it.  _ Everything.   _ It's so  _ big,  _ it's so  _ much.   _ It's all there is, big and huge and the weight of it is flat and dark and terrifying.  But Cas tastes it again,  _ “ _ Everything _.”  _ And yes, he nods curtly, though it makes his head spin.  That's right.  Yes.   _ Everything.   _ That is what he would give to Dean, what he  _ should _ give to him.  That is his charge.  That is what is right.  He continues.

“Everything you prayed for, I wanted to, I should have...  All that you prayed for and more.  Always.  Forever.   _ Forever.   _ I wanted to… You can't imagine, how I wanted to--”

Dean thinks maybe he could imagine.  He only wonders how long it has been, since he has been willing to give Cas  _ everything. Too long.   _ But he doesn't interrupt.

“But I couldn't.  I don't deserve.  Didn't wanna mess you up.  I hurt you, I heard that in your prayers, and I didn't wanna… Didn't want to hurt you more.”

Cas shakes his head, sadly.  “I b’long  t’ you, too, you know.  Given… Given to you.  My charge.  Forever.  I will always be yours.  No matter what.  But ‘M… I'm… I'm never gonna have you.  Never gonna, I know.” He sobs, brokenly, and clutches his heart.  “‘S always gonna… Always gonna hurt.” And then he just dissolves into tears, big, wet tears, sounds coming out of his mouth that aren't words.  Except, maybe, “Dean.”

Dean freezes up.  He's angry, he's still angry, because what Cas did, that hurt.  Leaving him in the field without a word, ignoring his prayers, ignoring his  _ confession.   _ When all Cas had to do to make it right was come back.  And explain himself.  There was no devil, no war, no captivity holding him away.  Only himself.  He heard Dean's prayers, and he heard they were true, and that they were meaningful and that they ground out Dean's heart like a cigarette under a boot heel.  And he didn't come.  Apparently, because he had been drinking the whole time.  

So Dean is  _ angry _ , and he  _ doesn't _ want to give up his defensive posture and move from his bed, he  _ doesn't _ want to kneel on the floor and gather Cas in his arms and kiss his temple and tell him it will be OK, it will all be OK, because Dean  _ is  _ his and  _ always will be,  _ no matter what.  

But… he’s angry but.. he isn't cold, he isn't heartless, he also can't just watch Castiel there, miserable on the floor, crying with his trenchcoat covered with ketchup that looks like blood in the dark.  He doesn't want  _ that.   _ He doesn't want Cas to  _ suffer,  _ never that.  He just wants Cas to talk to him.   _ And never leave,  _ a deep, dark, part of him whispers.   _ And never leave you, ever again.   _ A part that he imagines, for some reason, has black eyes.

“Can you take us back there?” Dean finds himself asking.  “Can you take us back to the field?” Maybe if they can go back there, they can go back to what they felt, there.  Maybe they can get it right.  Maybe they can undo what was done mistakenly.  Castiel can be the sun god, again, not this angel broken and stained on the bedroom floor.  Dean can see him again in the light, and touch him slowly and more carefully, more carefully even than before, and ask, every time, “Is this OK, Cas?  Does this feel good, Castiel, angel?”

His fingers reach out, imagining it.    

Maybe then Cas won't be afraid, or overwhelmed.  Maybe he will just  _ stay.   _

“You would… You would want to go back?” Cas asks, sniffling, wiping his runny nose with the sleeve of his coat.  He can't believe it.  He can't believe that Dean would ever want that.  He can't believe that Gabriel was right.  

Dean's eyelids slide down, he drifts away from Castiel's gaze.  His next words aren't angry.  They are bashful, and shy.  “Told you,Cas.  I always wish for you to stay.  Told you I'd never stop wanting you to come for me.” His voice breaks.  “Didn't you believe me?”

Castiel stares at Dean's face, his blue eyes so wide and rimmed with tears that they are almost unreal.  His lip trembles for a moment and then he breaks out crying again, he can't help it.  “I believed you but… your heart, I could feel that too, I  _ always _ feel it, and your heart  _ hurt _ so much.  And that hurt, I knew, I  _ knew,  _ it was all my fault, all my fault,  _ because  _ I came to you,  _ because  _ I stayed too long.  I hated it that you hurt. I hated it that it was my fault.  I heard you, and I believed you, but I thought,  _ I can't hurt him like that again, I can't ever, I can't.” _

He's almost hyperventilating, so he pauses a moment, to breathe.  Then he says, more calmly, now almost resigned: “I can't, I can't, I can't.  Dean,  **I can't** hurt you like that.  Don’t let me.  Don’t make me.”  

Dean doesn't know what to say.  To almost any of this.  But it's OK, because Cas isn't finished, yet.

“Gabriel and Balthazar, they told me, they told me ‘Go to him,’ like it should be so easy, and I  _ wanted  _ to, so much, I did, Dean, please believe me, but that  _ want _ , that's how I hurt you, it made me come to you, and take too much, and make your heart sore, and I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, Dean…”

Dean doesn’t know what to say, but he realizes, recognizes, that this is getting out of hand.  Cas’ emotions are death spiraling, drunk spiraling way too fast, way too hard, too many feelings, too much hurt, and it is breaking Dean's heart and he can’t keep up with what Cas is feeling or even with his own feelings about what Cas is saying, and he can’t bear to see his angel broken like this and  _ took too much?   _ What could Cas mean by that?  Castiel could never take too much, from Dean.  There wasn't a part of Dean that didn't already belong to Castiel.  There wouldn't ever be.  Didn't Castiel know that?  Didn’t he see it, every time he looked into Dean’s eyes?  

This situation was slipping away from Dean, in a bad way, in a way that made him feel panicky and caged in, and he needed to try to get a handle on it.  

So: “Take us back to the dream, Cas.  Please.  ‘S too dark here, and you're hurting.  Please?  You didn't… You never… Just, take us back.  We're OK.  It's OK.  It's gonna be OK.  Let me show you.  That's how I can… That's what I know… take us back there, and let me show you.” He paused, and then tacked on one more “Please.”

Castiel wiped his face with his trenchcoat sleeve again.  “Dean… are you sure?  That you want to go back there… With me?”

“Yes Cas.  That's what I want.  With you.”

“OK, Dean.”  Castiel raises a hand, and complies, though he still doesn’t understand why, why Dean would go anywhere with him, let alone back to the garden, why Dean would give him this chance.    

And then they aren’t in Dean’s room any more.  They are back in the field of Eden.  Dean is still lying on his back, and Castiel is still kneeling, but now Dean is lying at Castiel’s hip, instead of above and away, on his bed.  

Castiel is not touching him.  They are close, very close, but not touching.  Deliberately not touching.  Castiel’s hands are limp at his sides, his eyes are closed, lids dark, and tears are still streaming down his face.  

Dean swallows.  “Can I touch you, Cas?” A rough whisper.  He wants to.  The space between them, every space, is kniving his heart.

Castiel whimpers, the hurt sound of a small animal, caught in a trap.  His eyes squeeze shut, tighter.  But he nods.  

Not enough.  Not this time.  “Say it, Cas,” Dean’s voice wobbles.  “You have to tell me.”  A plea.

“Yes.  Dean.  Yes.  Touch me.”  

“OK, Cas.  I will.” He breathes out a small relief.  “Can I touch your hair?”

“Yes, Dean.  Please.”  Castiel sniffles, again.  

And Dean sits up, on one elbow, his right, in the grass.  He sits up, and with his left hand he smooths back Castiel’s hair.  One pass, and another.  Fingers soft and careful.  The oil and bar-grime fade away with each pass, Dean's fingers coaxing Cas’ grace to the surface, to care for this vessel that had for two days not cared for itself.

“Halo’s gone, angel,” Dean says, when Cas’ hair is smooth and clean.  “Can you bring it back for me?”  And his first finger draws straight across Castiel’s hairline, where he was banded with gold in the last dream.

But no halo appears.  

“Dean…” Castiel isn’t sure about this.  He let his body go sour, his hair go wild, his stubble too long, his coat too dirty, sweating, reeking, because that is what he deserved to dwell in.  Not the clean garment and banded gold of the sun god.  He let it all go for a  _ reason,  _ not only out of distraction, or carelessness.  And he’s not sure yet that that reason is gone, and that he deserves his bands of gold again.  He’s not even sure now if he ever deserved them.

“Sssshhh OK angel, OK.  Not if you don’t want to.  Nothing you don’t want.”   _ Tell me ‘no’, but don’t leave me again. _  Then.  “Can I touch your face?”  Dean’s fingers stop, waiting.  

Castiel whimpers again, and doesn’t answer Dean’s question.  He can’t.  Dean’s hands on his face, touching him the way they just touched his hair?  He can’t imagine.  He can’t bear the thought, it is too much, it overwhelms him.  So instead, he answers one of Dean’s prayers, just one part of one prayer from the first day.

“I remember, Dean,” He says dreamily, “I do remember, I remember when we laid here in the Garden and I drew on your stomach.  It did feel good.  It felt so good, Dean.  I’m so sorry.”  He starts to cry, again.  “I’m so sorry I ruined that for us.”  

“Ssshhh, Castiel.  Sssshhhh, sweetheart.  It’s OK.  Nothing’s ruined.  Do you want… do you want to lay here, with me, again?  Do you want to touch me like that, again?”  

“Yes,” Castiel replies immediately, the word a sob, broken in half.  His cries spasming through him.  

“OK.  Ssshhhhh baby.  Come here.  Lay down.  It’s OK.”  Castiel doesn’t move, but to clench his fists at his sides.

Dean understands that clench of fists.  He has clenched his own fists, like that, before, when it was Cas.  Because he was afraid that if he was given an inch, he would take a mile.  A mile too far.  But he understands now, or he thinks he does, that for him, there is no mile too far.  There is nothing Castiel could take from him that he wouldn’t want to give.  Those clenching fists are clenching around a lie.  A lie they have both told themselves, for too long.  Far too long.

“It’s OK, Cas, that’s what I want, too.  I want you to lay here, with me, like that.  I prayed for it, remember?  I  _ prayed _ .  Will you answer my prayer? Will you be my angel?”

Cas keeps crying, even harder now, racked, full body sobs, but he nods his head.  “Yes, Dean,” he replies, and delicately, too drunk and crying too hard to be graceful, he leans over, on his side, curls his knees up into his chest, into the fetal position, and rests his head on a curled up arm.  He keeps his eyes closed up tight, and he does not touch Dean.

“That’s better,” Dean says, eyes full of concern, anger all leaked away from his body now, seeing how torn up Castiel is, how repentant.  How careful of him.  Though it seemed callous to Dean, when Castiel left him without a word and ignored his prayers, though it seemed hurtful and cruel, Dean sees now what it did to Cas.  How it hurt him.  That he did not act casually, or contemptfully of Dean.  That he was torn apart, too.  How many times, Dean wonders, has he roasted in anger at Cas, drinking, fighting, killing with abandon, thinking that Cas left him and forgot him, when instead Cas was broken up like this.  And did Cas think that Dean went on without him, unaffected, uncaring or even glad to be rid of him, all those times?  How much have they hurt each other, assuming indifference that did not exist?  And what can Dean say, now, to make sure that that never happens again?   

“Can I touch your arm, angel?” he asks, softly, quieter now, that Castiel’s head is on a level with his own.  Inches away.  Not quite close enough, to feel Castiel’s sobbing breaths. But still close.  “You’re so upset, Cas, baby, I wanna help you feel better.  Can I touch your arm?”  

“Yes, Dean,” Castiel cries, voice high.  “But I don’t understand why you want to.”  And his body shakes again, with his tears.  “After I… After I…”

“Hey.  Hey there.  Hey, sweetheart,” Dean says, and he wants to take Castiel in his arms and hold him, but he does not have permission for that, so he does not.  He places his hand on Castiel’s bicep, soft as he can.  “I’m not mad because, well, I’m not mad at all, now, I  _ wasn’t  _ mad--”  _ why is this so hard _ , “I  _ wasn’t  _ mad because you touched me, or because… because you  _ liked it _ .  I’m mad-- I  _ was  _ mad because you  _ left,  _ after.”   _ That’s almost always why I’m mad, at you, Castiel, really.  Never because you ask too much.  Always because you leave.  Because I don’t want you to ever leave. _

Castiel whimpers.

Dean squeezes his own eyes shut, frustrated, and tries harder.  This  _ matters _ , he’s got to get it right.  He can’t let Cas keep… keep  _ feeling  _ like this.   _ Hurting  _ like this.  Thinking that Dean doesn’t want him.  All of him.  Always.

“Do you understand?  You can touch me.  It’s OK… it’s OK for you to… feel good.  I want that.  It feels good when you touch me and I want to make  _ you _ feel good, too.  OK?  You just can’t… please don’t leave.  It’s not OK, when you leave.  It’s not OK, when you won’t talk to me.  Do you understand?  That’s what’s not OK.  That’s  _ all  _ that’s not OK.”  He pauses “Can you talk to me, Cas?  Please?”

“Dean,” Castiel sobs out, and then words are flooding out of him.  “I thought you were happy, without me.  I thought… I thought I should leave you alone.  I thought I would ruin what you had, if you knew I was alive.  But you were so sad.  So, so sad.  I wanted to make you feel better.  I couldn’t just watch… you were so sad.”  

He hiccups.  “So I came to you.  But I was afraid, Dean.  I was afraid, because… I didn’t want you to see.  I couldn’t let you see.  It would _ruin you._ You have a life now, you’re _safe_ , finally, nothing’s after you, and if you saw, if you saw how much I _need you_ , if you saw… if you saw that I _love you_ , more than _anything,_ that I _need you every second,_ with me, safe with me, near my heart, under my wing, every _second_ … I was afraid you would try to come for me.  I was afraid it would ruin you.  The angels, or their enemies… _my_ enemies in Heaven, in Hell...  Some of them, all of them… They would hurt you, they would take away everything you have, when you had to fight so hard for it, lose so much to get it.  I was so afraid, Dean.  But I wanted you, so much.  You were so… you were so beautiful.  You are always so beautiful.  It was too much for me.  I came to you, my sad beauty, and now I've made your heart sore.  I’m so sorry.”  

“Ssshhh, Cas.”  Dean’s hand stills on Castiel’s arm.  All of that.  All of that going through Castiel’s mind, so many considerations to weigh against each other, when it should have been so easy.  Castiel needs Dean near his heart every second.  Dean  _ wants _ to be under Castiel’s wing, every second.  It should be so easy.  But instead it was this hard.  A tear leaks out of Dean’s eye for his angel.  His angel that is so, so good.  That loves him so well.  That tries so hard to be true.    

Castiel doesn’t see Dean’s tear, he is deep in his confession.  “And I heard your prayers, I did, I heard them, but I was  _ ashamed _ .  I came down here, flying down out of the sun, showing off, banded in gold,  _ taking  _ your mouth....  _ Taking  _ the sounds, that you made… becoming an  _ animal.  _ I wasn’t an angel.  I wasn’t  _ your  _ angel, I didn’t revere you, I wasn’t true, I was an  _ animal. _  And so when I left I was ashamed, I was  _ so ashamed.   _ I heard your prayers, and I wanted to come back to you, I did, Dean, but I was so ashamed.  So I hid.  I hid, and I drank, like a coward. _ ”   _ He hiccups again.  “I’m  _ so sorry, Dean.   _ Please.  Believe me.  I’m so sorry.  I’m so sorry and I still love you.  I still love you and I’m sorry, and I want to be your angel again.  That's all I want.  It's the only thing I've ever wanted, just for me, for myself, ever, and now I've ruined it and your heart is sore.” His head collapses at the end of this on a chest shaking with sobs.

“Ssshhhh, Ssshhhh, Cas.  Sssshhhh, swee heart.  Ssssshhhh angel.  Hey.  I told you.  It’s ok.  You weren’t an animal.  You were my angel.  Always my angel.  Always what I want.  I wasn’t mad that you came to me, or that you touched me, or how you touched me, or how you reacted.  I was only mad that you went away.  You have to hear me.  I know you’re sorry, I know you feel bad, fuck, I know how that goes, I’m there 99% of the time, and whatever it is, someone tells me ‘it’s not your fault,’ or ‘it’s ok’, and I don’t believe it, I just keep on feeling bad, feeling sorry, anyway.  I understand.  But I don’t want that, for you, sweetheart.  You have to hear me.  Please hear me, angel.  I'm not mad that you showed yourself to me.  I'm not mad that I made you come with my mouth-- I was  _ trying _ to make you feel good, to give that to you, and I’m  _ proud _ that I did.  I was only ever mad that you went away.  And now you’re back.  And you were always my angel, that’s why I prayed to you.  What, you think I'm gonna pray to that dick Gabriel?  No way.  You’re my angel.  You always will be.  Please.  Hear me.”  

Dean strokes his hand down Castiel’s arm as he says this, down slowly, gently, and then back up, hoping that his words are getting through the thick shroud of guilt, and pain, that Castiel is wearing.  The stains on the trenchcoat start to clean themselves under his hand, as he strokes, as he talks, until it is clean again.  Castiel’s cries quiet inside his chest, as he strokes, as he talks, until they are tiny, soft, little things.  Just little, sad, breaths.  

“M your angel?”  Castiel asks, under his breath, like he can’t even begin to hope.  “Still?”

“Always, Cas.  Always, sweetheart.  I promise.”  Dean combs his fingers into Castiel’s hair, and it is soft, and clean, and he combs again and Castiel’s band of gold appears, under the palm of his hand.  Dull, not glinting in the sun, but it is there.  

“Dean,” Castiel swallows heavily.  “Can I… May I… Can I touch your stomach, with my fingers, again?  Like before.”  

Dean sighs.   _ Finally.   _ “Yes, Cas.  Yes.”  

Castiel reaches out, slowly, his fingers just peeking out of the cuff of his trenchcoat.  His hand is trembling.  He touches just the first one to the very center of Dean’s stomach, light as the feathers of a newborn chick.  Tears are still in his eyes, but they are different, now.  They aren’t sobs; they are awestruck.  He cannot believe that he has been given this forgiveness.  He cannot believe that he has been given this chance.  He cannot believe that there was never a time when he wasn’t Dean’s angel.  

Dean laces his own hands together, under his head, and relaxes on them, closes his eyes.  “Feels good, Cas.  Always feels good, when you touch me.”  

“I like to touch you,” Castiel says, sadness mixing with awe in his voice.  “I shouldn’t, but I do.”  

“Fuck ‘shouldn’t,” Dean says easily, eyes still closed.  “I’m right here with you, sweetheart.  You ain’t doin’ no wrong.”

_ Oh Dean, _ Castiel thinks _.  How can you be so good?   _ And he draws his finger in a gentle circle on Dean’s stomach, the simplest of patterns, and remembers that Dean said it only wasn’t OK when Castiel didn’t talk to him.  So he says it out loud.  “Oh Dean.  How can you be so good?”  he says it and he sees:  his rule of silence was so dangerous.  This is so much safer.  This is so much  _ better _ .  He didn’t think anything could be better, than just lying here, with Dean, but this is.  

“‘M not good,” Dean says, though he is wrong.  

“You are, Dean.  I’ll show you.”  

“Mmmmm.  OK, Cas.  OK.”  Dean feeling too tired, now, that his cares are melting way, too relaxed in the sun, under Castiel’s hands, near his body, to argue.  “You gonna stay with me?”  That’s what matters.  That’s the only thing.

“Yes.  Yes, Dean.”

And he does.  He stays there all night, and late into the morning, by Dean’s side, fingers on his stomach and nothing more.  

He tells Dean how he is good.  How the demons fear him, feared him even when he was in Hell and they thought he was one of him, thought he was subjugated; how the angels fear him, because he understands something they do not.  

 

He tells Dean how he is beautiful.  He tells Dean about his eyes, how the are like the autumn leaves in the sun.  He tells Dean about the freckles on his cheeks and how all the angels envy him, Castiel, because he gets to brush his eyes over them and count them, over and over, a different count every time.  He tells Dean about his eyelashes, and how they are threads of gold, and how they cast shadows on his cheeks when he sleeps that Castiel can stare at for hours.   

He tells Dean how he is brave.  How no one has ever survived what he survived for 30 years.  How no one has ever faced all the evil that he has faced.  How he raised his brother when he was too young, and too scared, and never should have had to.  How he saved the world, so many times, though no one ever thanked him for it.  Dean begins to cry, when Castiel begins to list the names of every soul Dean saved.  It is a long list, and Dean asks Castiel to stop before he can make it through a tenth of it.  Like it is hurting him, just to hear that he is good.  Castiel does stop, but he promises himself he will finish the list, someday.  

Castiel tells Dean every thought he had in his head every minute that he was in Heaven, the last two days, every thought that he bore silently, stoically, even as Gabriel and Balthazar cajoled him and pleaded with him to talk.

He tells Dean that he loves him.  That he never wants him to hurt.  That he wants to be with him, always.  That he would do anything, go anywhere, kill anyone, to keep him safe.  That no one has ever shed as many tears in Heaven as he did, the last two days, keeping himself apart.    

He tells Dean how much he wants him, how Dean’s voice echoes in shivers down his spine, how he can’t take his eyes of Dean’s lips, sometimes, how much he wants to put his hands everywhere on Dean’s body and how he doesn’t understand why.  He tells Dean that he has never felt anything like the feel of his tongue on his fingers.  

“And I love you,” that is what Castiel says in the end.  That is all he says in the end, for hours.  “I love you.  I love you, Dean.  I love you.”  Everything he didn’t want to confess, laid bare.  Everything that he held back, given.  

“I love you.  I love you.  I love you.”  Long after the sun rose.  Long into the day.  

“I love you, Dean.  I love you.  Forever.”  

 

*****  

One day.  One day, only.  Between when Dean rose from bed, eyes bright, well rested, sun-warm from his dream of Castiel, and the Garden, and when he laid back down in his bed, and let his eyes grow heavy, and drifted immediately to sleep.  Only one day, before Castiel returned as was promised.  One day of  _ happiness  _ for Dean, between knowing that Castiel loved him and knowing that Castiel would return for him, and touch him in the sun. One day, and his heart was so light.  

Only one day, before Castiel will spiral down out of the sky of Dean's dream, again.  This time carrying flowers.  Roses, and peonies, sunflowers, daffodils.  He will spend  all day in the Garden choosing them, choosing the most beautiful, the most fragrant blooms.  Ana will help him in the morning, and smile at him when he hums a sweet song.  It doesn't have words, but she recognizes it.  It sounds like “I love him.”

One day, all day, Castiel’s wings flexed proud behind him, full of grace, because he can feel Dean’s heart, not tired, not aching, not sore.  Instead golden.  Instead, floating easy in the daylight.  Castiel's bees buzzing around him, a warmth to the sound of their flight.  A warmth that buzzes out:  “I love him.”

One day, all day, ignoring Gabriel and Balthazar, who sit on the grass behind Castiel, drinking mead and slow-clapping at him, smiling and yelling at him as he hums his sweet, wordless song:  “I told you so, you stupid son of a bitch” (Gabriel) and “I’m happy for you, Cassie.  We all are,” (Balthazar).  Ignoring Gabriel passed out on his back in the grass in the evening, singing The Boating Song at the top of his lungs. Ignoring it better than Balthazar, who shoves at Gabriel's side and slurs “you never rowed for Eton, you heathen,” in his primmest British accent, and then passes out snoring on Gabriel’s chest.  All the while Castiel smiling at his brothers, and the scented blooms, and choosing the best ones, and harboring secret (but not secret) in his mind the thought :  “I love him.”

All day just  _ happiness  _ for Castiel, knowing that Dean forgives him, knowing that he will get to spend the whole night with Dean again when the moon rises.  Knowing that if he wants, he can lay by Dean’s side in the dream for hours, and draw on his stomach in the endless sun.  Knowing that in the coming evening's darkness  _ he will have all that he ever wanted _ .  And how could he be happier than that.  In Heaven truly, for the first time in all of his existence, in Heaven.   

And when the night comes on Earth and Dean slips into dreams, Castiel does not wait, he spirals down out of the sky, golden banded, dressed in white again, arms overflowing with flowers, and lands at Dean’s side.  He sits cross-legged with his knees against Dean’s, and drops his load of flowers on Dean's chest, and says “I’m going to make you a crown.”  

Dean’s eyes narrow against the sun, looking up at Castiel.  Dubious, he asks:  “You gonna stay with me, Cas?”  The last thing Dean said to him yesterday, the first thing today. The most important thing.  Always.  Crown or sword or iron or salt.    

“All night,” Castiel replied, devotedly.  “All morning.  As long as I can.  Today, tomorrow, forever.”  He meant it.  He  _ meant it _ , he did, with all his heart.  With body and mind, on his lips and skin and breath, he meant it.  With the wisdom of ages and hardness of battle and burning of his grace in the stars, he meant it.  

He smiled when he said it,  _ forever,  _ and his heart soared, because he  _ meant it _ .    

“Then OK,” Dean said, and took one of the flowers out of the heap, a daffodil, and bit down on it with his teeth, breaking the flesh of the stem.  His eyes were rings of gold, heavy lidded, and the freckles dusted on his cheeks were brown and uncountable.  “When you’re done making my crown, will you touch me, again?”  He asked around the stem of the flower, in his mouth.  

Castiel shivered, his hands trembling where they held the stems of two roses, that he was beginning to weave together.  “Yes, Dean.”

“Will you kiss me tonight, Cas?”  Dean asked, his lips pink against the green stem, his teeth white, his cheeks blushed.  His hair ruffled by his hands, by the wind.  Strands golden, with the flare of the sun behind him.  He was too beautiful to be real.  He was too beautiful to be denied.  

“Yes, Dean,” Castiel whispered, his voice trembling too.  “I will make you a crown and I will place it on your head and then I will kiss your lips.”

Dean rolled the daffodil stem over in his mouth, eyes hooded, dangerous.  “Will you kiss my neck, too, Castiel?  Will you kiss my shoulders, and my hands, and my chest?”

“Yes, Dean,” Castiel answered, voice barely audible, hands and roses dropped in his lap.  “Yes.  I… Want that.  Have wanted it.  Have imagined it, through long sleepless hours in Heaven.  For a very long time.”

A beat of silence passed, and it seemed to Dean that Castiel wanted to say more, but he remained silent.  Dean closed his eyes, and relaxed back onto his laced hands, as he had done in previous nights, chewing the stem of the daffodil and tasting its sweet and bitter liquid.

Dean was fully settled into the silence, when Castiel began to speak.  Very quietly at first, but picking up volume as he went along, his voice smooth and even.

_ “Oh Beloved, _  
_ take me. _  
_ Liberate my soul. _  
_ Fill me with your love and _  
_ release me from the two worlds.  _  
_ If I set my heart on anything but you _  
_ let fire burn me from inside. _

__  
_ Oh Beloved, _ __  
_ take away what I want. _ __  
_ Take away what I do. _ __  
_ Take away what I need. _ __  
_ Take away everything _ _  
_ __ that takes me from you.”

He paused for a moment, at the end, breathing heavily, not from the exertion of reciting the poem but from the intensity of emotions it summoned. “Always, Dean.” He said, a little shyly.  “Want you to know that.  Always.”

“OK, Cas, ok,” Dean said, and there was another moment of silence as Cas weaved, and Dean tapped his fingers against the back of his head.  Then Dean cleared his throat.  He hummed a little, the beginnings of a song that Castiel thought he should recognize.   It was familiar, from somewhere.  Castiel was trying to place it, when Dean stopped humming and  _ sang,  _ voice like amber in the sun.

“ _ Should I fall out of love, my fire in the light _ __  
_ To chase a feather in the wind _ __  
_ Within the glow that weaves a cloak of delight _ __  
_ There moves a thread that has no end _ __  
__  
_ For many hours and days that pass ever soon _ __  
_ The tides have caused the flame to dim _ __  
_ At last the arm is straight, the hand to the loom _ __  
_ Is this to end or just begin? _ __  
__  
_ All of my love, all of my love _ __  
_ All of my love to you, oh _ __  
__  
_ All of my love, all of my love, oh _ _  
_ __ All of my love to you.”

He’s quiet by the end, and his face is flushed with a deep blush.  He pauses as the song hangs in the warm air and slowly fades away, and then says, shyly.  “You too, Cas.  Always.”

“My fire in the light,” Castiel says slowly, carefully, as he weaves.  “All of my love, to you.”

The sun is warm.  The Garden is quiet.   _ All of my love, to you. _

Dean turns onto his side, slowly, carefully, and holds himself up on one elbow, so he can watch Castiel weave his crown.  Castiel’s hands are strong and sure, his fingers deft and gentle on each stem, each petal, as he weaves.  Dean is mesmerized.  He has always loved Castiel’s hands.  He has always imagined what they would feel like, on his body.

He imagines that now.  He imagines that  _ he _ is the flower, that Castiel is opening  _ him  _ up, bending him and curving his hands around him, making him into new shapes, making him into something beautiful.

When Castiel finishes his weaving, and places the crown on Dean’s head, he does it slowly and reverently, like he is crowing Dean the King of Heaven, not only his lover in a field of dreams.  He stares at Dean hard, to try to capture this moment in his memory, every detail, so he will never, ever forget.  Roses, on Dean's brow, lighter in shade than his lips, but not softer.  Woven over his ears with peonies, pale pink and opened only shyly.  And the daffodils, orange, a contrast, and now forever reminding Castiel of the sight of one held between Dean's teeth, in his mouth.

Beautiful, his king.  His hero.  Beautiful.

“May I kiss you now, Dean?”  he asks, when this memory is woven into his true form, a part of him, one twinkling light among thousands, forever.  His voice trembles, revealing that he has waited since before time for this moment.  “May I kiss your lips?”  

Dean runs his fingers over the crown on his head, enjoying all the textures, the softness.  He draws the moment out.  He has not been waiting as long as Cas, for this, only one lifetime, and he lets Castiel’s question float heavy between them for as long as he can bear it.  This is the last moment.  This is the last moment, before he loses his heart.

[ _ No.  Castiel laid one hand in him in Hell, and he was lost.] _

He is staring into Castiel’s eyes, when he says “Yes.”  

He is staring into Castiel’s eyes when Castiel leans in.  

He kisses Castiel with his eyes open.

And when he feels as if he is going to drown if he stares into that blue one moment longer, he closes his eyes, and leans back, lays down on the soft grass, arms around Castiel, helping him to follow.          __

 

*****

 

Castiel knew how to save Dean, and mourn him, how to watch him die, how to love him at a distance and how to crown him, but not how to kiss him.  He  _ wanted,  _ so much, all at once, but his mouth could not get in the right place, the right angle.  He wanted too much, too fast, everything.

But he knew, even so, that when Dean pulled him down onto the grass, their bodies were unaligned, not close enough:  Castiel was hunched over Dean’s side, still cross-legged in the grass, Dean laid out beside him, not touching anywhere but his arms on Castiel’s back, his lips on Castiel’s lips.  

So he climbed into Dean's lap.  He hugged Dean's hips with his knees, he flattened his chest against Dean's chest, he threaded his fingers into Dean's hair.  He did not know what to do with his mouth, how to match the overwhelming heat and slick and pressure, the teeth and lips and tongue that Dean moved against him.  But he knew that he wanted to be closer.   _ Closer.   _ He threaded his hands into Dean’s hair and  _ pulled.   _

Dean made a small noise, in the back of his throat, and Castiel thought it might be distress.  He remembered their new rule, the rule that inverted their old one, the rule that said that there could not be silence, between them.  He had broken it, pressing himself against Dean’s body wordlessly, without asking.  He had broken it, and so he tried to sit back up, sit away from Dean, and ask him for the closeness he wanted.  

But Dean caught him, with ten fingers sprawled strong on the small of his back, and a heavy lidded stare.  “Where you goin’, Cas?”  He drawled.  “Thought you were gonna stay with me?”

And Heaven, Castiel would have done anything for Dean in that moment.  He would have stolen him any crown, or made him one from the stars. He would have given up the light, and sworn himself to shadows.  He would have given up the forgiveness of the Father, and sworn himself to violence.  He would have torn out his grace, and every feather of his wings, one by one, and sworn himself to the armies of Hell, forever.  He would have, he wanted to.  If it meant that he  _ could  _ stay with Dean.  Not just tonight.  Every night.  Every day.  Forever.  He opened his mouth, to swear it.  Himself, to Dean, always.

But  _ Not yet,  _ said a voice within him, a voice caught out of time, a voice that sounded somehow like the twirl of a knife.   _ Not yet.  Soon.   _ And a spray of blood, and a hiss of smoke in a fire.

So instead he replied to Dean.  “You sounded distressed.  I should have asked you.  May I cover your body with mine, Dean?  May I thread my fingers into your hair?” Then, softer, looking away.  “I want to be closer, to you.”

Dean touched one finger to the point of Castiel's chin and brought his gaze back up.  He held Castiel silent there for a moment, so Castiel could see the lust in his eyes, black and round and only thinly ringed with green.  Then he said “Yes.  Castiel.  Tonight, anything you want,  _ yes.” _

Cast jerked his eyes away, then, and cast them down in shame.  “Don't say that, Dean,” He whispered, his voice trembling.  “You don't know what I've imagined.”  _ You don't know about the lightning.  And the thunder.  You don't know how loud you scream, or how hard, when I imagine  _ **_anything._ ** ”

Dean guided Castiel’s gaze back, gently, again.  “You don't know what  _ I've  _ imagined, angel.  You  _ couldn't.”  The sparks and the breaking glass and the walls collapsing around us.  The heat and the bruises that I do not ask you to heal.   _ He pauses.  “Anything you want, angel.   _ Anything.” _

“You've… Imagined?” Castiel asked, lust - broken, awestruck.  What could Dean have imagined, with him?

Dean nods his head, seriously.   _ Yes. _

_ “ _ You've imagined me… Kissing you?”  Castiel’s voice is becoming a growl.  

Dean nods again. 

“Tell me how I did it.  Tell me how I kissed you in your dreams.”  His fingers dig into Dean’s tshirt and hold on tight, as if he can pull the answer from Dean by pulling on his shirt.

Dean shivers.  The black in his eyes is warmed by a smile.  The finger holding up Castiel’s chin becomes a palm, that cradles his face.  “Imagined it so many ways, with you, Cas.”  

A candle lights inside Castiel, small and soft and warm.  “Tell me.” There has never been anything Castiel has wanted to know this badly.  He clenches his fingers in Dean's shirt again, to keep himself from floating away.

Dean clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth, thinking.  Cas waits for him to answer, rapt.

“Well, I imagined you might be so sweet, my angel, like a butterfly.  Light kisses all over my face, on my cheeks, my lips, over my eyelids.”  He finds a thumb along Castiel's cheekbone and stares, before starting to speak again.  “My eyes would be closed, so I could feel you.  So I wouldn’t be thinking about anything else, wouldn’t be feeling anything else.  Only you.  You’d kiss me there over and over, so soft, like little wings.  Sweet like candy.”   _ Spun sugar on my lips, so light and sweet. _

“Mmm.”  Castiel kisses Dean on his forehead, as lightly as he can, then each of his cheekbones, the top of his chin.  “Like that?” He asks, breathlessly.  

“Just like that, angel.”

“How else did I kiss you, Dean?”

“Sometimes, I thought you might be like rain.  Long wet drops, on my face, on my neck.  Your mouth would be open and you’d press it to me and taste my skin.  Your tongue would be covered in it, in my taste.  It would be all you could think about.”  

Castiel swallows.  He tastes Dean on his tongue, from the kisses they just shared, and when his tongue moves with his throat, that taste takes over his whole body for a moment.  And yes, it’s the only sensation he has.  No sight of blue sky, no sound of bees buzzing, no feel of grass under his knees.  Just that taste,  _ Dean _ , on his tongue.  Ashes, and pine.  He salivates.  His jaw is tight around “What else?”  

“Most of the time, you were like thunder and lightning.  Like-- you remember when we met, Cas?  You remember the sparks, and the fire?  You remember the glass breaking?”

“I remember,” a growled whisper.

“You were like that.  Your hands were in my hair and they pulled.  You pushed me down, or back, until there was hardness behind me I couldn’t be pushed any further and your whole body was crackling against mine, sparks bursting.  And your lips were so hard on mine that I could feel your teeth through them.  You fucked my mouth with your tongue and you bit my neck until it bled and the only word you said was ’Mine.’ You were so rough that I cried out, and when I did you only kissed me rougher, shoved me harder, pulled my hair tighter, and I came before you even touched my cock.”  

Castiel realizes he is growling, in Dean’s palm.  His dick is hard, against Dean’s thigh.  He knows Dean can feel it, and he grinds his hips down into it, just a little, just an inch.  

“Yeah.  That’s right, angel.”  Dean’s lids are slipping closed.  

“Dean,” he growls, hopelessly.  “Dean,” with another short thrust of his hips.

“Tell me what you want, baby.  Tell me what you wanna do.”  

“Wanna be your angel.”  

“Always, Cas.  What else.”

“I want to be the rain, Dean.”  Dean groans.  “I want my lips to be hot and wet on your neck.  I want to taste you.  I want to cover one side of your neck with my mouth and one with my hand and feel your pulse beat into my lips and and my palm and my fingers.  I want to mark you there, even though I know this is only a dream and the bruise will be gone in the morning.”  

Castiel feels Dean’s cock twitch beneath him.  “Yeah Cas.  OK.  I want that.”  

One beat of blood throbs through Castiel, so hard that when it recedes he feels faint, and his face feels white, and pale.  He traces a finger down Dean’s jawline, from the base of his ear to the tip of his chin.  Then he flattens out his hand and palms Dean’s neck.  The skin there is soft, but prickled with stubble.  Dean’s adam’s apple is a peach pit under his thumb.  It slides up, and down, as Dean swallows.  

He squeezes his hand around Dean's neck.  So lightly.  Not hard enough to cut off air, or to bruise, just hard enough that Dean can feel it.  

Dean’s eyes slip all the way closed.  His cock thickens against Castiel.  “Yeah Cas.  Like that.”

Cas’ lips find Dean's throat, open mouthed, warm and hot, sucking, not kissing. Each contact raising a bruise, then lifting off with a soft, wet sound, then sealing to new skin.  Every new pressure like a drink of wine, sweet and dark and intoxicating.  Castiel  _ is _ like the rain.  A hot rain that never ends.  Dean wishes it could cover his whole body, not just his neck.  He moans, darkly, and Castiel squeezes his throat.  He moans again, deeper.   

“Casssssss.”

Castiel's hand tightens and slackens with the pressure of his mouth, though Castiel is unaware he is even moving it at all, unaware that he even has a hand, or a body, as focused as he is on Dean's neck.  On the taste (salt mixing into the pine).  On the texture (soft and sheened with sweat).  On the  _ pulse _ \-- thud, thud, thud-- Dean's life, beneath his lips, slow but undeniable.  Rising up to the surface to meet Castiel's mouth.  Again, and again, and again.  Until the right side of Dean's neck is all a bruise, and Castiel switches hands, switches sides, and starts again.

“I called you ‘Mine’?” Castiel whispers, against Dean's skin.

“Yeah,” Dean replies, breathless, dizzy with Castiel’s kisses, drunk with them.  

“And you wanted it?” Castiel asks, still unbelieving, wanting to be sure.

“Wanted it so much all the lights exploded, Cas.  Wanted  _ you.” _

“You  _ are _ mine,” Castiel replies, tracing his fingers over the lace of bruises around Dean's neck.

“Yes.”

Castiel sits up a little-- only a little, still holding Dean's neck.  “No -- you don't understand.  You  _ are  _ mine.  My charge, my single purpose, forever.  I was given to you.  To tell you you are holy, down on my knees.  To worship you and show you you are divine.  To put you first, before all others.  To protect you and keep you.  To love you.  Mine, forever.  And I given to you.  Yours.  To do with as you will.”

Dean swallows.  “That true, Cas?”

Cas nods, solemnly.  

“Then don't leave.  Don't leave me, Cas, ever.  Stay here.  Touch me.  Kiss me.  Please.”  Dean folds Castiel's hand into his own and holds it close to his chest.

“OK, Dean.  OK.” Castiel says.

And he does.  He stays with Dean all night, single-minded, devoted, he kisses his hero, his charge, his king.  Every fingertip  _ for thine is the kingdom.   _ Gently over every bruise on his neck  _ the power, the glory, forever _ .  His jaw  _ the peace with passeth understanding _ .  His lips.   _ Amen. _

 

*****

One day.  One day only.

In Heaven, Castiel sits cross-legged in meditation, in the Garden.  Bees and butterflies come to him, swarming around him in a cloud; flowers all turn their petals to him like he is the sun.  The seraphim are drawn to him, Ana and Gabriel and Balthazar first, then others; Inias, Hannah, Samandriel, they surround him too, at a greater distance, like the butterflies and the flowers and the bees.  

_ Love _ , he is  _ love _ , he is  _ happiness _ , they can feel it.  They can see it:  light bending around him, colors like a prism, colors on butterfly wings, on bee bodies, on flower petals.  

In all of Heaven, there is not such happiness.  

In all of Heaven, there is not such love.  

They begin to sing, the angels around him.  Soon, the entire Host is gathered, and they sing one song.   _ Love _ they sing.   _ Creation. _  Stars are born.  Dark rocks turn to suns.  Water becomes life.  Because of Castiel, and the love in his heart.  

On Earth, Dean wakes with no bruises on his neck.  His skin is smooth, unmarked, perfect.  He can remember the touch of Castiel’s mouth, the warm rain, wet and hot, he can remember how his skin throbbed; his heart beats faster when he remembers the gentle pressure of Castiel’s hand on his throat.  But there is no ache, when he runs his fingers over his neck.  There is no pain, to make it real.  There is no mark, to stand dark and proud and tell the world that Castiel said  _ Mine _ .  

_ It’s not enough _ , Dean realizes, fingers pressed gently to his own throat.   _ It’s good, but it’s not enough _ .  

Tonight, he thinks, he will ask for more.  

Tonight, he thinks, he will ask for  _ everything _ .

He thinks about it all day long.  Castiel, inside of him.  He releases the bonds, that prevented him from thinking about it before.  They had grown dusty, brittle and tight.  He shakes them off and he is free.  

He thinks about Castiel's cock spearing him open while he brushes his teeth, while he eats his breakfast.  He is riding Castiel, until tears form at the corners of his eyes while he mindlessly pounds nails at the construction site, while he lifts drywall.  While he chews dryly on the sandwich in his lunch.  While he takes off his gloves, his hat, his tool belt, and leaves them in his locker.  “Cas,” He gasps in his daydream as he opens the door of his truck to drive home.  “Harder, angel, please,” while he showers for bed, while he pulls back the sheets. Tonight, he thinks, he is imagining it, what it will feel like, to be full of Castiel.   _ Tomorrow _ , he thinks, he will  _ know _ .  He hopes that that will be enough.  

_ [It won’t _ , taunts the black-eyed voice.   _ It won’t be enough.  You will have to swear.  You will have to  _ **_swear_ ** _ to him,  _ **_swear_ ** _ it,  _ **_everything, forever_ ** .   _ It will cost you your blood and it will warp the Earth and it  _ **_still_ ** _ won’t be enough. _ ]

In Heaven, the colors around Castiel swirl to blues, and violets and threads of garnet.  The light happiness in his heart thickens, and sinks to his groin, and tingles in his fingertips.  The key of the Host’s song turns to minor.  Stars explode.  Nebulas collapse.  There is war, on Castiel’s planets.  Blood is shed, red and hot.    

The song is heard everywhere, in the Garden.  When Dean wakes into the dream there, the flowers in his field have gone crazy.  They have grown wild and numerous and lush beyond imagination.  He cannot name all their colors.  He can barely breathe, for their scent.  They fold in against him when he arrives, wrapping around his legs, his knees, his ankles, caressing his shoulders, the small of his back.  It is as though they are all trying to find his skin, like they are all vying for the privilege.  

But his skin is covered.  Too covered.  He is dressed as he always is in the dream:  faded jeans with a hole in the knee, a heathered grey tshirt that is thin and soft and has lost its shape.  He takes them off.  The flowers, gone mad around him, seem to grow even more, to cradle him, to hold him up from the hard ground, to make sure that everywhere he feels only softness.    

He lies there, naked, head rested on one arm, other hand loosely stroking his cock, eyes hooded, mouth parted, bedded in flowers, waiting for Castiel, waiting for  _ everything _ , staring up at the sky.

Usually, the sky is bright in Dean’s field.  Usually, the sun is yellow and warm and stays high overhead and casts no shadows no matter how many hours of Earth's night Dean passes there.  Usually, Dean has to shield his eyes when Castiel appears, spiraling down towards him in the brightness.

But now a cloud forms.  Now several.  Grey and dark.  Thunder rumbles, like train cars slamming into each other.  It rumbles in the distance, and shudders closer, and closer, as heavy clouds roll in.  

Until lightning strikes, electric blue, at Dean’s feet, and the thunder cracks almost simultaneously, and the air burns with ozone.  With that one crack, the lightning is let loose, striking everywhere, near and far, in the flowers, in the field, on the mountains off in the distance, making the air crackle.

Making the hair on Dean’s arms and legs rise up.  Making his skin tingle.  Making his heart beat faster, and faster.  Catching his breath in the back of his throat.  Smothering him with the scent of flowers, and ozone.  

Castiel does not spiral down out of the sky tonight.  Lightning cracks at Dean’s feet again, and sparks shower over him, and it is so bright that he has to throw his free arm over his eyes.  

And when the light has faded, and the sparks are dying embers on his skin, and he inches his arm away from where it protects his face, there is Castiel.

Standing over him.  Chest bare.  Biceps banded in gold.  White garment clinging to his hips.  Eyes flashing and rimmed in kohl.  Halo crackling around his head.  Wings tall and shimmering black behind him.  He flexes them, and rivers of lightning flow around them.

“Hello, Dean,” he says.  

Dean cannot reply.  There is a god, standing above him, over him.  Not the sun god he knows, gentle and warm and soft.  This is the god of the  _ storm.   _ This is a god that can only be  _ withstood.  _ Dean can feel him, electric against his skin even though they are not touching, and he only  _ hopes _ he will be strong to withstand what's coming.

“I felt your  _ longing. _ ” Castiel continues, face a mask. _  “ _ All day, it called out to me.  And now I see you, waiting here for me, ready, beautiful, like a pearl in the darkest waters.  Perfect, for me. _ ”   _

Castiel's eyes  _ gleam _ .  His cock thickens obscenely, angel garment tented out away from his waist, darkened and wet around the fat head.  “I’m ready for you, too.”  He palms his hard cock.  

“Last night, I was the rain.  Tonight, I am the lightning.”  And lightning flashes all around him, lighting up the storm-dim field, making the flowers into white ghosts.

Dean swallows, and shifts against the flowers.  “Yes, Angel,” he says and licks his lips.  He doesn’t even realize he’s doing it.  It makes lust flare, in Castiel, and he snarls.  

There is another flash, whiting out Dean’s eyes, and when he can see again, Castiel is on top of him.  Body pressed against his with a surging roll, arms straight like columns on either side of his head.

Castiel rolls his body again.  Dean moans.  They are both already so hard.  

“Last night,” Castiel says, and the thunder rolls.

“You said I was rough with you.”   _ Flash.   _ Castiel palms Dean’s nipple, hard and dry.  Dean arches up against him, in rut.

“Yes, Angel.”

“You said I bit you, until you bled.”   _ Flash.   _ Castiel’s teeth skim across Dean’s throat and then  _ sink _ .  Dean whimpers, but withstands it.

“Yes, Angel.”

“You said I told you, ‘Mine’,”  _ Flash.   _ Castiel’s right hand fits itself to the hand print on Dean’s left shoulder, where it  _ sears _ , and flares up a clear, golden, light, that swords up into the air, straight through the clouds.  Dean screams.

“Yes, Angel.”  

“Is there anything you didn’t tell me?”  Castiel asks, his hand still on Dean’s shoulder, pressing deeper, making a mark that will not disappear in the morning.  

“Yes, Angel.”

“Tell me,” Castiel growls, and licks the bite on Dean’s neck, tongue wide and hard and wet.  Dean whimpers.          

He thinks that Castiel already knows.  He thinks that this god is manifested as the god of everything Dean wants.  Every move that he makes, every touch, is exactly as Dean would have imagined it in his most desperate dreams.  Castiel could not be more perfect.  Dean could not be more turned on.  His cock could not be harder.  Some gods control the tides or chase the sun across the sky or forge weapons in fiery charms.  But this god's nature is to know everything Dean wants, be everything Dean wants.  To be  _ lightning. _

_ Tell me,  _ Castiel has asked, but Dean thinks that Castiel knows.  It is obvious in the way that Dean has spread himself out, naked, waiting for Castiel’s arrival.  It is obvious in the way he writhes and whimpers when Castiel rolls his body against him.  It is obvious from every other pleasure Dean described to him; it is obvious in every look Dean has ever cast in his direction.

Dean thinks that Castiel already knows.  But he wants to tell him, anyway.  He wants to beg for it.  Beg for it from his god.

He is taking too long to answer.  Castiel fucks up against him again, hard, impatient, and he moans.

“Want you to fuck me, Angel.”  He bites his lip.  “Want you to fuck me until I can't breathe.”

“Yes, hero,” Castiel replies, and sinks his hand deeper into the hand print on Dean's shoulder.  Dean screams when a wave of fire rips through him.  “If that is what you want.”

Dean is crying already.  It hasn't even started, really, and Dean is crying, and screaming, and begging already.

His body is going to be  _ destroyed,  _ he realizes.  It makes him feel alive.

 

*****

 

_ Until I can’t breathe, _ Dean begged him, and the lightning burst and flickered inside him, burst free in the fields, on the mountains, jagged and spiked hot from the dark clouds gathered above them.  He crawls backwards down Dean’s body, hands running over his chest, his hips, until he can reach Dean’s cock, and mouth at the base, the head.  He is glad that Dean undressed himself, before he arrived, because if Dean were still wearing any clothes he thinks he would call the lightning down, from his hands, to burn them away, and that he might singe Dean’s skin.  In doing so.  

He wants Dean to be singed.  He wants Dean to burn away.  But not like that.  

He lifts Dean’s legs over his shoulders.  He bends forward, and Dean bends with him.  His tongue find the entrance to Dean’s body, and licks in deep.  It tastes so good.   _ Dean  _ tastes so good.  And he knows it shouldn’t, doesn’t make any sense, isn’t how the tongue works,  but somehow he tastes even better when he whimpers, and writhes, and Castiel has to hold his hips down with his hands.  

“Easy, hero,” he whispers gently.  “Easy.  Keep pace, with me,” and as soon as he is done talking his tongue laps forward again.  Softer and lighter touches this time, not so aggressive, not so deep.  Easy.  A wind picks up around them, but it is only a breeze.  

_ Mmmmmmm _ Dean tastes so  _ good _ .  He tastes like Fall; bright sun, bright leaves, nights getting longer, and colder.  Castiel laps him up.  His tongue strokes again, and again, and again.  Dean’s thighs become slick with his saliva; his own chin, his cheeks become wet with it too.  Precome leakes down from Dean’s cock, down along his shaft, down into Castiel’s face, and Castiel laps that up too, tongues it into the mix, lets it become another flavor, bitter hazelnut, one flavor in the Fall.

Dean’s legs are held tight over Castiel’s shoulders and Castiel’s hands are firm and strong on Dean’s hips but still Dean squirms.  That is how Castiel knows it is good for him.  That and the sounds that Dean breathes into the ozone air.  Not words.  High breaths.  Moans.  Short screams.  

They will be long screams, by the time Castiel is done.  That is what he has imagined, when has imagined this, the lightning.  That is what will come to pass.  Dean will scream so hard he won’t be able to breathe.  That is what he asked for.  That is what Castiel has imagined.  

Castiel is still licking tenderly, soft, but Dean is trying to fuck himself back onto Castiel’s tongue now, tight as Castiel is holding him.  Castiel holds him tighter, until he can’t move, and continues to lick over him, only teasing the tip of his tongue into him.  And when Dean struggles against him, and can’t move, that is when he breathes out a helpless cry:  “Please.  Please, Angel.  More.”  

Castiel makes sure his arms are wrapped tight around Dean’s thighs, his hands hard on Dean’s hips, and then he fucks his hole tongue into Dean, hard and deep as he can.  Dean’s body tries to buck up, into the touch, but Castiel is holding him too tight, and he is only able to strain against Castiel’s hold, and moan into the wind.

The wind picks up.  The flowers, their petals and leaves, are swaying, now.  If it picks up much more, petals will start to fall.

The inside of Dean tastes… it tastes the same, but  _ hotter _ .  It is still the Fall, but now it is hot cider, still steaming, on his tongue.  He laps into it, wanting more.  His face is a wreck with saliva, precome, his stubble chafed against his own skin from pressing into Dean so hard.  But he wants to  _ taste _ .  The movements of his tongue against Dean, the way he holds Dean down, the way Dean writhes up against him, these he has been able to imagine.  But he has not been able to imagine the  _ taste _ .  He licks into it, again and again, and Dean’s moans have become continuous now, rising and falling with the pressure of Castiel’s tongue inside of him.  

Dean is trembling.  “Cas,” he cries out, voice soft and sounding so lost, “Cas, please.  I’m going to--”

“No.”  Castiel interrupts him with a command, absolute.  Lightning strikes and hits a tree, it cracks and groans as it crashes to the ground.  Castiel withdraws his tongue.  He withdraws his head from between Dean’s legs.  He withdraws the touch of his body, except for where he holds Dean down.  “No.  Not yet.”  He’s not done with Dean.  There is so much more, that he has imagined.  The wind is barely more than a breeze, but he lets it pass over Dean, cooling down his skin, banking the fire there.  “Not yet.”

Dean whines, and tries to strive towards Castiel with his body, but he cannot, he is held too well, and as the cool wind breezes over him he calms.  He quiets.  His body becomes still.  His cock stops leaking, stops throbbing.  His hands release the grass they have been clutched in, and find Castiel’s hands, on his hips, and cover them.  He pants in the stillness, until he can breathe again.  

He  _ withstands _ it.  

Then.  “OK, Angel. OK.”  

“Do I have to bind you?” Castiel asks, and the thunder rumbles with his voice.  

_ No.  Yes.  Please.  No.   _ All these answers through Dean’s mind while the thunder still rolls.  “No, Angel, please.  Not tonight,” he pleads, before his voice becomes quiet.  “Want to feel you.”  He wants to touch Castiel, his hair, his shoulders, his face, more than he wants to be that much under Castiel’s control.   _ For tonight _ .  He thinks.   _ For this first time.  Maybe… _  Maybe  _ many  _ things, with Castiel, in the future.  Maybe  _ anything _ .  

“Anything you want, hero,” Castiel says, and turns his head to kiss the inside of Dean’s knee, softly.  Dean is so brave.  He will try to withstand this, without the help of bondage.  He will try to withstand it, only with the strength within his own skin.  So brave, Castiel’s hero.  

Dean is already wet, and slick, and sloppy, but he is not ready to take Castiel yet.  Not by far.  So Castiel removes his right hand from Dean’s hip, and reaches back into his wings for more slickness, better than his saliva, thicker, and fragrant with his own scent.  

He slides his middle finger into Dean, and growls when Dean whines above him.  He slides in in one long stroke, finger straight, and when he is gloved in Dean to the base of his hand, he crooks his finger.  

Another lightning strike.  Dean feels it behind his eyes.  It leaves afterimages in his vision, ghost lightning striking over and over and following his wild eyes as they roll back in his head.  

Castiel does it again.

Dean screams, and his body shakes.  

Castiel crooks his finger a third time, and Dean doesn’t have the breath to scream any more, and his body locks up in spasms.

Castiel withdraws his finger.  Dean’s hole flutters and twitches sadly, too open, too empty, too bare, in its absence.  

“Angel, please,” Dean begs, though he doesn’t really know what he his begging for.  To be full again, maybe.  Just to be full of Castiel again.  That’s what he wanted, isn’t it?  To  _ know _ ?  “Please.”  

Castiel looks at Dean’s hole, fascinated by the way it seems to strive for him.  To want him back, his finger, his tongue, though he is an intrusion.  This is not something he imagined.  He lets his finger reach out, to trace around Dean’s rim.  Little shocks of lightning sparking between them as he circles around, and around.  So many nerves there, he sees with his angel eyes.  So many of them lighting up and sending sparks up Dean’s spinal column, into his brain.  

“Cas please.   _ Please _ ,” Dean begs again.  “I have to, I’m going to, I can’t--”

“No.”  Castiel withdraws his hand immediately, and leans back.  “No, I told you, not yet.”  

“Cas, Cas, Cas,” Dean pants, one ‘Cas’ on each breath, trying to gather himself together, trying to hold on, just for one second longer, and one second longer, and just one second more.  Trying to feel the cool breeze on his skin instead of the sparks in his spine.  Trying  _ not _ to look at Castiel, his eyes dark and flashing, his face covered in their combined slick, his lips red and puffy.  

Castiel leans back and lets Dean get control of himself, his heart beating hard with each “Cas, Cas.”  

He fits his hand to the handprint on Dean’s shoulder.  Wanting to feel his claim.  Thinking that the pain, the burning, will knife through Dean and help him cool off, help him make it through this moment.  

He is wrong.  The pain slices through Dean, the pain and the claim and the fire and the golden light and the feeling of belonging to this deity, this god, for all of eternity, and Dean comes.  He comes in fountains, on his stomach, his chest, on Castiel and Castiel’s other hand, still on his hip.  

He comes screaming.  He comes until he can’t breathe.  He comes and Castiel’s eyes flash.

He has never had an orgasm like this.  He doesn’t think could even only be called an orgasm.  This is a storm.  This is a hurricane trying to rip his body apart.  This is a rite to his god that destroys his body so that it cannot ever belong to anyone else.  This is a tribute.  This is what he offers, of himself, so that he can belong to Castiel.  Forever.    

“Angel,” he whispers, as he goes limp under Castiel, as he sinks into a blackness that pulls him down.  He just needs to hear it.  Wants to hear it, before he passes out, to try to recover.  Just needs to hear it from his angel’s mouth.  

Castiel knows.  Castiel knows what Dean wants, what Dean needs.  “ _ Mine, _ ” he says, removing his hand from Dean’s shoulder and resting it carefully over Dean’s heart.  “ _ Forever.” _  The thunder rumbles again.  

“Yes,” Dean whispers, before he is lost to the black.

 

*****

 

When Dean wakes, Castiel is naked above him, his white garment gone.  Castiel is sat back on his heels, straddling Dean’s hips, stroking his own cock with one hand slowly, gently.  His other hand is still on Dean’s heart. 

His eyes are dark on Dean’s.  “That’s not everything you wanted,” he says to Dean.  Because he knows.  

Dean is still shaky, bones only loosely connected to each other and muscles like water, but he nods his head down once.  

_ Flash _ .  “I want to give you  _ everything _ ,” Castiel says.  “Do you understand?”  

Dean nods again.  “Yes, Angel,” he whispers.  He cannot speak any louder, his throat is scraped raw from how hard he screamed, when he came.  “But ‘m.”  It’s so much effort to talk.  “But ‘m not ready.”  He isn’t.  He  _ withstood _ the first wave of the storm, but his body is wrecked and too tired, too sensitive, to withstand again.

He is a little ashamed.

“No,” Castiel says, when he feels it, the shame, pulsing through Dean, and he presses his hand down harder on Dean’s heart, and he  _ gives _ .  He is the god here.  It is his to give to Dean.  To give him everything, anything.

Dean’s back arches off the ground.  His body is  _ filled  _ with light.  His body is filled with gold.  His vision is so clear, he can see every hair on Castiel’s head, every strand of muscle in the iris of his eyes.  His eyes are blue, they are so blue.  Dean can  _ see  _ them.  He can see little specks of light swirling in them, little bright lights, and as soon as he sees them in Castiel’s eyes he can see them sparkling in the air all around Castiel, centered on his head and spiraling out, and out, around and around again, all through the field, all up into the sky, where they are stars.  

His mouth opens on a moan.  “Cas,” he moans.  “Castiel.”  Does his angel know, that he is the stars?  Does his angel know, that he is so beautiful?  That he is the only thing that is beautiful, here in this garden of flowers in Heaven?  Dean has to tell him.  

His mouth opens, and the light inside him breaks free.  “Beautiful, Cas,” he breathes, and the words spear gold into the grey clouds in the sky.  “So beautiful, angel.”    

There is no soreness left in his body, no tiredness.  The gold, it is everywhere inside him, he feels it under his fingernails, on his eyelids, between his toes, around his cock, which is hard and throbbing again.  He is warm, he is warm everywhere, and he  _ needs _ .  He is warm but he feels  _ empty _ .  

“Angel, please,”  

Castiel touches him gently, thumbs under his eyelids, swiping and turning his freckles to gold, more gold, more shining, warmth, heat, beauty.  “Are you ready for me now, hero?”  He asks.  But he knows.  Every question he has asked, all night, he has known.  God in this field, in this valley.  A lightning strike.  

Dean looks into his eyes so he can see the blue there, and the stars, when he answers.  “Please, Cas.  Angel.  Please.  I have to  _ know _ .  I have to...”  

“I know,” Castiel replies.  He cups Dean’s face with two hands and kisses his lips so softly.  

Then he braces his arms on the ground, and thrusts into Dean where he is still sloppy and slick and wet.  He thrusts in hard.  He doesn’t wait for Dean to loosen around him.  He thrusts in hard and deep and his cock scrapes up against the inside of Dean and Dean’s back arches off the ground again.  

When he is fully seated Dean relaxes back onto his bed of flowers, and shows Castiel his eyes again.  They are flecked with gold, but rimmed with shimmering tears.  

“Mine,” Castiel says to those eyes, to those tears, as they start to leak down onto Dean’s cheeks.  And he thrusts into Dean again.  Dean tries to close his eyes, hide them away, so that he can be battered by the sensation of Castiel fucking him in the darkness, instead of in the impossible light of the stars that flicker around Castiel.  But “No,” Castiel says again.  “Those are mine too,” brushing a thumb at the corner of Dean’s right eye, so that Dean will open them again.  

“Perfect,” Castiel says, and then he fucks him.  He fucks Dean hard and deep.  He fucks Dean into the flowers, through them, into the grass, into the soil.  He fucks Dean as shafts of light start to shoot down through the clouds. He fucks Dean holding his head in one huge palm and his hip in the other.  He fucks Dean as he cries, and pants, and moans, and then screams.  He fucks Dean and his eyes flash.  He fucks Dean and bites his neck again, and says “Mine,” again, growls it into the bite.   _ Until I can’t breathe,  _ Dean had asked him, and that is how Castiel fucks him.     

And now Dean knows.  He knows what it feels like to be split apart on Castiel’s cock.  He knows what it feels like to be full.  He knows what it feels like to ride lightning.  He knows now that he could  _ not  _ withstand it, but that Castiel is so good to him, so kind, giving him light and grace and new strength and a new body to fuck into.  He could not withstand, but Castiel loves him so much he fucks him until he dies and then he brings him back to life.  He could  _ not  _ withstand the godhead, but Castiel is a loving god.    

_ This.   _ This is  _ everything _ .  There is nothing else.  There never has been.  There never will be.  The field is pierced by all the shafts of light breaking through the clouds, and Dean is screaming again when he comes, and for a second he doesn’t see Castiel’s eyes, he sees blood dripping down from his hand, into a fire, and smoking.  

“Mine,” Castiel says, and replaces his hand over Dean’s heart, as Dean sinks down into the flowers beneath him, and wraps his arms around Castiel’s back, drawing him in deeper, drawing him in close, exhausted from his orgasm, from the pounding of Castiel’s cock, but shivering a little every time one of Castiel’s stars flickers through him.

“Always,” Dean says.  Blood drips into a fire.    

 

*****  

Every night.  

For one year.  Every night.  

Castiel came to Dean every night.  Sometimes he made Dean a crown.  Sometimes he wore flowers in his hair.  Sometimes they talked, sometimes they were silent.  Sometimes they kissed, sometimes they fucked, sometimes they made love, slow and soft and sweet and long in the flowers.  But Castiel came to him every night, without fail, his angel, his dream, his paramour.

 

*****

 

Castiel came to him during the day.  Dean was raking leaves, again.  It was Fall, again.  Crowley was with him.  

“‘The fuck is he doing here?”  Dean asked, pointing the butt of his rake at Crowley, who only smirked.

Castiel’s back was straight, too straight.  His hands were in the pockets of his trenchcoat and his voice was hard.  “Dean.  There is war in Heaven.  Raphael is ascendant.  He means to re-start the apocalypse.”

“So what, we saddle up?” Dean asks, taking off his gloves.  

Castiel barely acknowledges that he has spoken.  “There is a rebellion.  I am its general.  Raphael is… displeased.  He seeks to gain an advantage against me any way he can.”

“Cas,” Dean says, but Castiel ignores him again.

“He has not sent his agents against you yet.  Not yet.  But he,” a tremor of feeling ripples over Castiel’s hard face, the only one that has appeared there thus far.  “But he will.  He will… try to cure me of my human weakness.”

Crowley’s smirk deepens.  

“Cas, what?  No!”  Dean doesn’t know why he is saying ‘No,’ what he is negating, but he knows that something is wrong.  

“I’m sorry, Dean.  This is for the best.”  He takes his right hand out of his pocket, his first two fingers pointed out, reaching for Dean’s forehead.

“Cas!  No!” Dean ducks his head, dodges to the side.  “Talk to me, Cas.  Remember?  That’s the only thing that’s not OK.  When you don’t talk to me.  When you leave.”  Why does he feel like Castiel is leaving?  Why is he so afraid?  Who is this robot, who stands in front of him?  Where is the warm sun god, who wove him so many crowns of so many soft flowers, and placed them on his head with gentle kisses?  

“I’m sorry, Dean,” Castiel says, but he doesn’t sound sorry.  He doesn’t sound like anything.  He sounds like he has turned to stone.  

Because he has.

The second time he doesn’t miss Dean’s forehead.  

 

*****

 

Dean is standing in his yard, holding his rake.  A breeze blows a handful of leaves out of his pile.  A cloud follows the breeze, and covers up the sun.  

He feels empty.  His heart feels sore.  He is  _ longing _ , for something.  He doesn’t know why.         

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> O.O
> 
> I could never have written anything that fucking sad if it weren't sandwiched in between a hundred thousand+ words of these two being desperately, obsessively, earth-breaking-oath-making in love with each other forever. 
> 
> I think I will also post these 2 chapters as a standalone separately from this fic. They will just be lightly edited to not include the little hints about the future that are currently included. 
> 
> The poem that Castiel recites to Dean is by Rumi.
> 
> I am brainheartpizza on tumblr (https://www.tumblr.com/blog/brainheartpizza). I post unedited excerpts between AO3 updates.


	16. Sharp Edges

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He doesn’t understand. This is not the way an adversary should act. This blade is powerful, ancient, priceless. Why would Sekhmet want to give it, to Castiel. “You want to give this to--”
> 
> “It comes with a price, of course.” 
> 
> Of fucking course. Now Dean is back on more familiar ground. He wraps the blade back up. “Screw you,” he says. “I’ll take care of Cas.”

Chapter 16:  Sharp Edges  
  
 _When I said that I loved you_  
 _I meant that I loved you forever_  
\--Keep on Loving you, REO Speedwagon

\---Present---

 

Castiel has a wall of knives, and every one has fallen to the floor.  They tumbled there when Dean, Mark-crazed, raged in the cache.  They clattered, and skidded, and slid with sharp clicks on the marble.

Dean returns now to set them right.  He promised Cas, that he would.  He told Sam, that he would, and that he would do it alone.  Penance.

He walks back to the cache after telling Sam about the cultists.  He does not fly, or bend space, though he could.  He walks.  Through the throne room, ignoring the demons there, through the armory, slow and pensive, worrying his lower lip with his teeth.  Not wanting to hurry, not eager to be reminded of what he has done.  

He still feels the distant tingle of Castiel's lips on his own.  He still feels the ghosts of Castiel's fingers on his back, striving against him on the cliff's edge, holding him close in the cache, after.  He still feels what it was like to be so _close,_ so close to Castiel, to see his true form, to see how beautiful it is, to feel like he was a _part_ of it.  The emerald heart at the center of a spiral of stars.  

But now, on this trudging walk, he is not emerald, bright and glowing.  Now, he is charcoal, black and dull, pieces of him flaking away with every breath of air.   Now, he is cold.  Cold, and his mind far away from the walls around him, and from the sounds of his boots on the stone hallways.  He withdraws in his thoughts until he is floating directionlessly in space, just barely held in the orbit of some lifeless, distant planet.  Ready to break that orbit and float, just float away.  

_ Cas _ .  He thinks, as he walks, not seeing the torches that light his way, because it is only dark, where he is.  Where he is alone in far reaching silence, abandoned because of his rage in the cache.  Because of the blood on his hands in Iowa.  Left alone, apart, like he deserves.  Where he always knew he would end up eventually.  Where it feels like he will be taking heavy steps forever, in the dark, never reaching his destination, alone.

_ Where is Cas.   _ To keep him warm.  To make it bright.  To prevent him from drifting away and becoming lost in the black, forever.

_ Where is Cas.   _ His angel.  His heart.  The sun keeping him warm and the moon lighting his nights, forever.  

_ Where is Cas.   _ The thrill of his touch the only feeling that matters.  The care in his hands on Dean's body the only comfort in all of Hell.  The beat of his heart sworn to Dean, forever.

_ Where is Cas.   _ His eyes, and his pale skin set against the glitter of Dean's name, tattooed on his throat, beautiful.  And his body, moving under Dean's, hard and sweet and sure, forever.

_ Where is Cas.   _ Whispering Dean's name, or screaming it.  Soft in Dean's ear or so loud it cracks the stone of the Pit, but always promising:  _ forever. _

_ Where is Cas.   _ Kissing Dean so softly; soft and sweet and light like pink cotton candy.  Kissing Dean like the rain.  Kissing Dean until the air between them turns to lightning.

_ Where is Castiel.  Where is the angel. _

_ He has gone away,  _ Cain answers, as if explaining a very simple concept to a very stupid student.   _ Because you ruined his place. _

_ No,  _ Dean thinks.  Just  _ no.  No no. _

The walk is long, but not long enough.  When Dean arrives in the cache and sees it again, sees the wreckage without Castiel there to hold him and whisper words of forgiveness, cold tears freeze in his eyes.  His vision blacks over with shame.

_ This is what I did, to his secret place.  Violence.  Destruction.  This is what always happens, to what I love.  Godammit. _

Cain laughs, inside him.  Cain has gone mad, he does not remember anymore what it even means to be sane, and he laughs at Dean.  Laughs and laughs.  His laugh is joyless.

Dean's cold tears become icicles on his lashes as he just floats, floats away, away from his body, away from the heat of the Pit, away from the crazed laughter ringing in his ears.  He doesn't try to stop.  He doesn't try to hold on.  It would be too hard, and he is too tired, and there is too much broken here, too much damage.  He doesn't want to be anchored here.  It is easier to fall towards Cain's laughter.   

He stands at the edge of the wreckage, shoulders slumped, mind spinning away, falling.  This is not a good place.  This is a broken place, that confronts him with his own avarice.  But he wants to fix it.  He doesn't want to be Cain.  He doesn't ever want to laugh like that.  He wants to hold on.  Hold on longer.  One day longer, to be with Cas, even if one day is all he gets before he succumbs to the Mark and begins to laugh joylessly, in the black.  He will hold on for one more minute, one more hour, so he can fix this for Cas.  He  _ wants _ to fix this, for Cas.  

But he doesn't know where to start, to fix it.  There is too much that is broken. He can't decide what to do; he is paralyzed by all the possibilities.  How can he choose to fix any one broken thing if that means leaving all the rest broken for longer?

He is so tired.  His body is so heavy.  He can barely feel the little sparks on his lips, anymore. Cain's laughter is so loud.  There are three dead.  Three dead, _ all for me. _

He could make the damage in the cache disappear, make it all like new with a wave of his hand:  it is his power to make and remake the Pit as he sees fit.  That is how he remade the library.  But he does not do that, he does not even consider it.  That will not earn him atonement.  That does not show the measure of his sorrow.

So he stands, paralyzed.  Should he sweep up the shards of his armor stand?  Should he mop up the water, now lukewarm and stagnant?  Should he right the tables he flipped over?  Should he re-hang Castiel's knives?

A little star flares in the darkness Dean has withdrawn to when he thinks of Castiel's knives.  He feels warmer for a second, just a little, his fingers don't feel numb from the cold.  He thinks of them again.  The little flare, that little sun, it is enough.  It shows him where the light is, and the warmth.  Those things--light, warmth-- are there for him, if he cares for Castiel's knives.  If he cares for Castiel.

The tears frozen to his eyelashes thaw when he turns to where Castiel's knives are fallen in a heap.  He imagines them hung again, shining and sharp and glittering and true.  He imagines Castiel approaching the wall, to select one and weigh it in his hand.  Castiel is so beautiful with these weapons.  Deadly.  So fast.  Immediate and ruthless, unbreakable and unstoppable.  A wall of sharp death between Dean and what harm would come.  Hearts, throats, eyes, hands, Castiel will slice them all.  Blood of human or ichor of demon or grace of angel, he will spill it.  It will cover his face, his neck, his arms, as his chest heaves and he stands back, triumphant, but not a drop will land on Dean.  Not a drop will even get close.  Dean will stay unblemished, unbloodied, unhurt, always, behind the wall of Castiel's fierceness.  He will stay there clean and whole and short of breath, from watching his protector.  His shield.  His angel.  Always.

Now, Dean knows the direction of the sun, again.  Now, Dean has done a wrong and he knows it.  But he can make it right, again.  This, at least, he can make right, even if there are three dead in Iowa.  He can pick Castiel's knives up off the floor and hang them true again.  He can show them reverence and care, the care he should always show Castiel, and all his sacred places.  He can make them ready, to receive Castiel's hard, glittering, beauty.

Dean advances, to the perimeter of the pile where Castiel's knives have fallen.  His step is not as heavy now, as the steps that carried him to the cache.  His unfrozen eyes take in the pile.

Castiel’s knives are of two types.  One type is plain and hideously pragmatic.  Stainless steel hilted with black leather.  These knives are  _ tools _ .  These are knives he uses when he feels that a demon has not been faithful to the Master.  Or when a soul calls to him, from the racks.  Dean replaces these on the walls in neat rows.  He checks them for damage, from the rage, but these are all perfectly maintained, oiled, sharpened, polished, and they have suffered no harm.  Dean only hangs them on the wall, and makes sure that they are dry, and will not tarnish.  

These knives of the first type are  _ useful.   _ These knives have dulled and sharpened and dulled and sharpened again many times.  Many times many.  

But these are not the knives Castiel carries on his person, when he stands behind Dean in the throne room.  These are not the knives that sleep underneath Castiel's pillow.  He does not protect Dean, with these knives.  

The knives Castiel carries with him are of a second type.  These are the knives given to him by Dean.  These are all beautiful, priceless, unique.  Powerful.  Blessed or cursed or both.  Dean takes longer, to replace these.  He runs his cold fingers over their sharp edges, and he feels fire there.  He draws their points down his forearm and bloods them and feels the pain and when the cuts heal he heals too, hanging each in its place on the wall, getting warmer, closer, coming in out of the dark.

 

\---Past---

 

Castiel did not have a weapon, when Sam called Dean's name and ripped him out of Castiel's arms after the Fall.  Only an iron fire poker, and the diamond sharpness of his mind.

When Dean returned, rescued, Castiel had the sword of an archangel.  But what he had been forced to pay for it… a deal with Crowley, his  _ soul _ … Too much.  It was too much.  

Dean did not want Castiel to be weaponless again, or have to pay his soul, again.  Not ever.  So he went to the armory, because there are many blades there, all ancient, all powerful, many beautiful (and many hideous), and he thought to choose one, to present it to Castiel, on his knees.  But none of them felt  _ right.   _ None of them were right, for his sweet angel.  The one with the crystal eyes.  

They were too dull, or too soft, or too ugly.  Too new, not yet blooded to grandeur, or too old, starting to rust through.  They twisted with Hell magic or they reminded too much of Heaven.  Too cruel or not cruel enough.  None of them were right, and Dean's guilt for leaving Castiel like that, vulnerable, unprotected, was living inside him, a bat with leathery wings that flapped and scratched his heart.

So he decided that he would have a knife made.  A knife for Castiel.  A knife that would be  _ right _ .  It would be difficult, dangerous, to get exactly what he wanted, from whom he wanted it, but that would be right, too.  

He called the First Blade.  He blinked open demon eyes.  He let his horns sprout, ebon and twisted, from his forehead. He went to the throne room and sliced the throat of the first demon he saw there, so that the Mark would burn on his arm.  He whistled with two fingers in his mouth and two Hell hounds appeared at his side, baying and snapping, made of shadows. He wore his red shirt, and his sprung boots.  Master.

And then he went to see the demi-god, Hephaestus.  The spittle-flecked, rage-filled smith of ages.  The forge-master, who lives in the hottest core of Hell, making weapons there that cannot be made or unmade anywhere else.  The coppersmith, the consort of Aphrodite.  The son of Zeus.  The son of the Father-God of Olympus.

The son of the God who is dead.

The son of the God that made Dean Winchester a God killer.

The son who owes nothing to Hell, or its mandates.  Who has no bonds, anymore.  Or only to his dead father.

Dean appears to him in a clap of black smoke.  Before he has even fully materialized, a red hot spear, sizzling from the forge, is thrown at his heart.  The Hell hound on Dean's left leaps through the air and catches it in his teeth with a snarl.  

A second spear is flying before the first hound lands.  The second hound pounces on Dean, knocks him to the side, and this spear drives into the basalt wall behind Dean with a crack.

_ Violence.  Rage.  Hatred.   _ The Mark burns bright on his arm.  He wonders how killing a demi-god would compare to killing an archangel.  His lip curls on a snarl.  His teeth feel sharp, and hot, in his mouth.  How long would the high last?

He shakes his head.  That is not what he is here for.  He repeats it again to himself.  That is not what he is here for.  Not death.  Not violence.  Not even an order; he cannot give those here.  

He waves his hand and Hephaestus freezes (does not die, does not burst into blood and bone.  Only freezes.  The Mark sinks all the heat from his skin, until it burns like ice.   _Don't play with him.  Kill him,_ Cain instructs, sounding disappointed.) The cords on Hephaestus’ thick neck strain as he fights Dean's thrall, trying to reach for another weapon.

Dean feels it, the smith's struggle, like the claws of a little bird chirping on his arm.  Little bird, little claws.  He fists his hands, and Hephaestus stills, straining against hidden power.  The Mark’s satisfaction  _ thrums  _ through Dean's body from this display of dominance.

“Do you know the angel, Castiel?” Dean asks, quietly.  Hephaestus can't move, but he rolls his eyes heavenward.  Dean's not sure what that means, so he continues. “He has mastered the water demons.  They fear him, now, and call him ’lord’.  Scylla is one them, one of  _ his _ .  He was one of your freaks, right?  Or your dad's?”  Dean paces towards Hephaestus’ workbench, and runs a finger down the edge of a sword there.

Hephaestus can't answer, and Dean doesn't wait for him.  “He needs a weapon, my angel,” he says, looking up from the swords on Hephaestus’ workbench and into his eyes.  Hatred smoulders there, and Hephaestus makes a desperate, buzzing noise.  The best he can do, paralyzed.  Dean points at his lips, and allows him to speak.  But he also raises the First Blade in a warning.  “ _ My angel.” _

“Fuck you,” Hephaestus spits, “Fuck your angel.”

“Wrong answer,” Dean says, and cuts off his head with one stroke of the First Blade.  God-blood pumps up from the neck of Hephaestus’ corpse, just like it pumps from human corpses.  Until Hephaestus’ body crumples, and falls sideways to the ground.  

The Mark heats back up on Dean's arm, not ice any more, now burning, now hot like a brand.   _ Yes.  Yes.  Yesyesyes.  Kill him.   _ And laughter.  Dean is dancing around the blood lust, like fire, like hot coals, dancing around the heat and the power as he advances on Hephaestus’ beheaded body.  He strides around the work table with long, slow, steps.  Hephaestus’ head looks up at him, when he rounds the corner, eyes still moving, still alive.  

Dean picks the head up, and holds it out so he can look at it.

“My dad thought he was a god too, but he was only a man,” He says to Hephaestus’ head.  He sighs sadly.  “The bastard that got him in the end did me a favor.  Took me a long time to realize that.”

“Your father was a mortal, mere mortal, pathetic, fallible.  My father was the Creator-God of Olympus.  And  _ you killed him like it was nothing.   _ Like he was some  _ vampire,  _ or  _ werewolf  _ or other  _ insignificant thing _ .  He should have ruled from Olympus for a thousand thousand years. _ ”   _ Hephaestus spits at Dean, enraged.

_ “ _ Could kill you, too,” Dean says, too casually, gesturing with the First Blade in his free hand.  “And what did your dad ever do for you, but leave you scars and disappear when you needed him most?  He seemed like a useless son of a bitch to me.  No great shakes.  Easy to kill.”

“You,”  Hephaestus’ face is a mask of rage, but it is impotent-- he cannot strike at Dean, or hurt him, while his body lies disconnected from his brain, on the hard stone floor.

“You'd be easier.  To kill,” Dean says, matter of factly, and sits down, back against Hephaestus’ workbench, knees drawn up, still holding out Hephaestus’ head out, by the hair.  “Is that what you want? Is that what this is? Suicide by being-an-asshole?You'd rather die, than make my angel a weapon?  Because I killed your douche of a father?  That about it?”

Hephaestus snaps his teeth at Dean, too angry to even make words.  His neck muscles bulge.

“Are you worse off, now that he's gone?  Doesn't look like it to me.  When's the last time someone threw you off a fucking mountain?  When's the last time anyone gave to give you shit about your foot?  When's the last time the rest of your family laughed while your brother fucked your wife?”

“I was a  _ god,  _ “ Hephaestus rages. “We all were.  You can't imagine--”

“Didn't answer my question.  Didn't ask you if you were a god.  Didn't ask you for your fucking family tree.  What I  _ asked you, Smith,  _ is  _ whether you are worse off _ now that pop is gone,  _ or whether I did you a fucking favor.” _

Hephaestus’ head hangs limp in Dean's grip on its hair, swinging slightly in the air.  

“I hate you,” he replied eventually, all fight gone out of his voice, face gone pale from blood loss.

“Didn't ask you if you wanted to be friends.  Don't go give a shit, actually, it's too fucking hot down here and you have zero sense of humor.” Dean replies, brashly.  “I asked you whether--”

“I'm better without him, alright?” Hephaestus cries out.  “Fuck you.  I hate you.  You are a fucking child and you don't understand your power and you use it too casually and you are as cocky as Ares and jealous as Hera and as stupid as the last mule my father fucked before you killed him.   _ Fuck you,  _ but I'm better off without him.”

Hephaestus looks like he wants to close his eyes and cry, think over this new insight in peace and quiet. But Dean is not his fucking shrink.  He the goddamned Master here, and he is as  _ aggressive _ as Ares and he hunts like fucking Artemis herself, and he came down here to get a knife for his angel.  

_ Or to killllllllll him,  _ Cain taunts.   _ It would burn you from the inside out.  We'd both burn,  _ and then he starts laughing his crazy laugh again.  Dean ignores him.

“You're welcome,” Dean says, standing up, putting Hephaestus’ head down on the workbench.  He crouches down, and rests his elbows to either side of Hephaestus’ head, to look him in the eye.  “So now I'll ask you again.  You wanna die, before you've got the chance to enjoy your new life without that fucking my-dad’s-dead chip on your shoulder, or do you want to make a blade for my angel?”

Hephaestus doesn't answer.  Dean stands, and begins cleaning his fingernails with the First Blade.  They always have ash beneath them, or blood, in the Pit.  “I carried around a shit chip like that on my shoulder for thirty years, first time I was in Hell.  Didn't get me anywhere.  You know what did?”  He looks up from his nails, into Hephaestus’ eyes.  “The angel.”  

Dean's eyes take on a faraway look.  “He'd be so beautiful with your blade, Smith.  He's so bright, and sharp, already.  He would become… You'd see him with it, and you'd fall in love with him.  You'd have to.”

Hephaestus spits on the table.  “Fuck you.  I hate you.  I'll do it.”

_ For the angel. _

 

\---Present---

 

Dean hangs Hephaestus’ blade on Castiel's wall.  It is Damascus steel.  It is delicately engraved with flowers.  Roses.  Daffodils.  Peonies.  Dean had asked Hephaestus why those when he took delivery, and Hephaestus had  _ fuck you, that's why,  _ and when Dean had raised the First Blade and asked him if he wanted to have his head chopped off again, then, Hepaestus had said only that he saw them, those flowers, circling Dean's head when he spoke of the angel.  

He picks up the next knife, from the pile.  Ivory.  Gold hilted.  Carved with a green jeweled scarab.  

 

\---Past---

 

The first time Dean meet Sekhmet, she appeared, unannounced, in the middle of the throne room.  Dean was sitting in justice, Castiel standing behind him, and she appeared.  Dangling a hairy, naked,  _ bleeding _ , demon by the scruff of its neck.  She tossed it on the ground, where it lay, snuffing a high, painful, whine and shaking.  She was brandishing one knife, blood on its edge.  Two more were visible, strapped to her thighs in the billows of her gold-ankled harem pants.  Dean thought that she was carrying at least 3 more.

Castiel hissed, and stepped in front of Dean, his Smith-blade drawn.  Dean sat back, eyes slitted, and willed himself to stillness.  This was not normal.  Castiel did not usually guard him so aggressively.  He usually did not need to.  This she-demon must be powerful.  Or an old enemy.  Or both.

“Lioness,” Cas growled, en gaurd, his body between Dean and the she-demon.  “What do you want?”

“Fucktoy,” she replied, her sharpened teeth glinting.  “This one--”

Dean was at her throat, in an instant.  “Not OK, mystery bitch,” he said.  He thought he reached for her throat with the First Blade, but found his approach blocked by her steel.  He persisted anyway.  “You don’t call him that.  You DON’T call him that.  You don’t call him anything at all.  You don't LOOK at him.  You go back to wherever the fuck you came from and you hope I don’t see you ever again.”

“Dean--” Castiel cautioned, but Sekhmet stepped back, and lowered her blade, amused.  

“This one likes you, angel,” she said, just barely smiling.  “He is stupid, but he likes you.”  

“Hey,” Dean said, Castiel saying “Dean,” again at the same time, warningly.  Dean wasn’t sure what Castiel’s problem was-- this she-demon couldn’t do anything to him, because of the mandate.  Though maybe she could do… other things.  Maybe she was an apocalypse-bringer.  Maybe she could control the sun.  There must be some reason for Cas’ behavior--this was extra bristly, even for him, even guarding Dean.  Dean stepped back too, blade lowered, and looked at Cas.  

“Why are you  _ here _ ,” Castiel asked the mystery woman, not rising to her bait, body still a line of tension, knife still drawn and held ready at the level of his eyes.  

Sekhmet stepped back another pace, flipped her knife in her hand, and sheathed it at her back.  She spit at the pile of naked demon fur still panting on the floor.  “ _ This _ one.  He came into my cave uninvited.  He  _ relieved himself _ on my floor.  My marble floor.”  

Castiel did not relax one degree, or even look at the demon.  He narrowed his eyes.  “So why didn’t you kill him?”   _ She does not need our help, with the likes of this one. _

“I have heard that the new Master is different from the old one.  More… Fair.”  She tastes this word hopefully.  “I am trying to find out if he is my enemy, or only my adversary.”  

Dean felt like there was a lot going on over his head here, between Castiel and Sekhmet, but he burst in anyway “Those are the only options?  Why can’t we be pals?  Buds?  I'm a friendly guy, ask anyone,”  he said, but his voice was dead.

Sekhmet looked at him like he was a bug she had stepped on by accident.  “I don’t know  _ Master _ .  My sisters tried to skin you alive. I wish they had succeeded, before this mandate bound our hands.  I would have come for you myself, if I had known you would be placed over us.  If I get the chance to cut your fucktoy’s throat without you looming over us like a big dumb, omnipotent ox, I will do it.  Are we ‘pals’ now?”  She says this word as though it tastes like rotted meat in her mouth.  She looks at Castiel again, as if to say “can you believe this guy?”

“So I guess that’s a ‘no’ on the BFF bracelets, then.”  

“ _ Why  _ are you  _ here _ ,” Castiel grits.  Dean is too easy to get a rise out of.  He should know better.  

“I told you.  This beast entered by cave without permission and defiled it.  I want you to give me justice.”

“What, you want me to like, pee on its rug, Dude?”  Dean asks.  Sekhmet and Castiel both ignore him, staring at each other, measuring each other up.  He shrugs his shoulders.  “Fine, whatever,” he doesn’t need much of an excuse to knock off demon scum on his best of days and this is now definitely NOT his best of days.  He turns away from Sekhmet to face the furry pile on the floor, and dispatches it with one stroke of the First Blade.  Too easy; the Mark only glows a little on his arm.  “Happy now?”  

Sekhmet shifts her eyes to his, though he somehow gets the sense she is really still looking at Castiel.  “Happy?  No,  _ Master _ .  I am not ‘Happy,’ she says, and then disappears, as suddenly as she arrived.

Dean doesn't even try to hold it in.  “WHAT THE FUCK??” he explodes.  “Cas, WHAT, the FUCK, just happened here.”  

Castiel is still on red alert, it seems, body still tense, still staring at the spot on the floor where Sekhmet disappeared, as if worried that she might come back.

“Sekhmet.  The Lionness.  The Queen of Blades,” he says.  

“I say again, Cas, WHAT THE FUCK.”  That’s not an answer, that’s just a list of titles.

Castiel finally looks at Dean, and relaxes a little.  “She is… very dangerous, Dean.  I have encountered her before.  She does… not like it that she has to bend the knee.  To you, or anyone.  I don’t know what she was playing at, here, but I imagine she was trying to decide how much trouble she is going to cause for you, and your rule.”  He narrows his eyes. “And after that encounter, I can't guess what she will have decided.”

“News flash, Cas.  I don’t give a shit what she likes and doesn’t like.  She doesn’t get to just come in here, and drop a corpse on my floor, and call you… call you…” he blushes and gets too flustered to actually say it.  “Does she not know I can follow her, wherever she goes?  That I SHOULD follow her, and end her miserable…”

Cas’ eyes flash big, and he looks alarmed.  “Dean, no,” he interrupts.  “Don’t do that.  Don’t… Don’t do that.”

“Why NOT Cas?  Mark would burn up, real nice.  And I’ve done it for anyone else, that called you… called you,  _ that _ .”  

“She just.”  Castiel doesn’t know how to put it.  “I would rather have her as an ally.”  That's not quite it.  He doesn't think she will ever be their  _ ally.  Asset,  _ maybe.

“She’s not acting like an ally.  Did you not hear her?  Adversary or enemy, those were the choices she gave.  The only choices.  I have another one.   _ Dead _ .  She could be  _ dead. _  Easy-peasy, one less  _ adversary.”   _

“No, Dean.  I just…  She is old.  She is wise.  She… We may find a time, in the future, when we would need her help.  She knows many things that the angels do not, and she would deal with us….more  _ fairly _ if it came to that.”  

Cas is acting weird.  Dean gives him a suspicious look.  “Is that it, Cas?”

Cas seems to look off into the far distance.  He doesn’t seem to see Dean, right in front of him.  “If someone is to end her… I want it to be me.  I want to do it.  I saw her fight, once, a long time ago.  I wanted to…”  He snaps out of it, and looks at Dean again.  “I would want it to be me.”  

“Ok, Cas,” Dean says, and steps toward him, to hold his face in his hand.  “Ok.  Hey.  Ok.  Whatever you want.”  

Castiel closes his eyes and nuzzles his face into Dean’s touch.  The last of the tension he’d been carrying since Sekhmet appeared finally leaks out of his body.  “Thank you, Dean.  I love you.  Thank you.”  

 

*****

 

Dean goes to see Sekhmet anyway.  

He rings the chimes at the entrance of her cave, instead of just smoking in to her living room.  He waits for her to call out “Come.”  He does  _ not  _ pee on her floor.

She is laying on a long velvet couch, sand colored, cushioned on beaded pillows, back to the entrance.  She has a very tiny, very green, snake, resting on her stomach.  She doesn’t look at Dean, but the snake does.  It gives him the heebie-jeebies.  

“Master,” she says, seeming slightly amused by his mere presence, by having to bestow this title to an ox.  “I’ve been expecting you.  I have something, for your angel.”  

This is  _ not _ what Dean expected.  Not at all.  His planned intimidation / smug threat routine leaks out of his ears.  Instead, he manages:  “What?  You… What?”   _ Nice going, Dean.  Very un-ox-like.  Very not-stupid. _

“It was good to see him.  I haven’t seen him since the plagues.  He still looks…” Dean can’t see her face, but her snake sucks in its tongue during this pause, like it is thinking.  “ _ Dangerous _ .”  The snake’s forked tongue slithers back out.  

“He’s  _ mine _ ,” Dean says, threateningly.  He doesn’t like the way the word  _ dangerous _ rolled off her tongue.  He doesn’t like the look in that snake’s eye.  

And it would have been threatening, to almost anyone else.  But Sekhmet only laughs at him.  “Oh, honey,” she says.  “I don’t want your angel, for that.”  He swallows.  Point still stands.  The angel is  _ his _ .  

“He had a Smith-blade, when I visited you,” she continues, as if this is not a non-sequitur.  “Roses, daffodils, peonies.  And they were all circling your head, too.”   _ Why does everyone keep saying that?  “ _ Your crown? _ ”   _

She doesn't wait for him to answer.  “Smith-blades are nice.  You were right, to get him one of those.  It is good enough, for him.  Very little would be.”  She rights herself at this, and turns to put her feet on the ground.  Her snake is all of a sudden on her shoulder, coiled around her neck, though Dean is sure that she didn’t move it there.

“But like I said, I have something, for your angel.  Something just as good, maybe better,” she says, and still not looking at Dean, walks deeper into her cavern, to a huge, gold-banded chest.  It is as tall as her waist.  She gestures at it, and its locks fall open.  “I gave him a blade, once before.  In my homeland.  He earned it, on the field.”  The snake balances perfectly as she leanes over the chest.  What the fuck is the deal with this fucking snake?

“But that one was not enough to protect him.  And he needs more protection, now.”  

“I will protect him, witch,” Dean grits out, between clenched teeth.  “I will keep him safe, you can be sure of that.”  Still threatening.

She actually stands straight again, and turns to look at him.  “You would actually try, wouldn't you?”  Shaking her head at the perceived foolishness of this.  

Dean opens his mouth to answer, but she doesn't  let him.  “Were you  _ protecting _ him when he was sneaking around Hell with an iron poker, making deals with the King?”  

“How did you--”

“No, you were not.  Anyone could have gotten him, then.”  Her smooth face hints at anger, when she says this.  “Just  _ anyone _ .”  She turns away to sort through her chest.  “It can’t be just  _ anyone,  _ that gets him.  What a waste, that would have been.  It has to be  _ me. _ ”

Dean is getting angry, too.  “No one is going to  _ get him _ , snake-lady.  I’m going to make goddamned sure of that.  And it’s not like he’s some little kid with a lollipop.  Have you  _ seen  _ him?  Have you?”  

She seems to find what she is looking for, and stands up again, turning to face Dean and approaching him with a bundle wrapped in green silk.  Her face is still smooth, but now it is traced with a hint of  _ smug _ .  “I have seen him, Master,” she agrees.  Her snake looks like it is laughing.  She holds out the bundle.  

Dean takes it, unwraps it.  A knife is cradled inside.  It is beautiful.  The blade is ivory, but where it is inlaid with an emerald scarab.  The hilt is gold, and etched with hieroglyphics.  Dean recognizes some of them.  They are  _ powerful _ .  The weapon seems to vibrate in his hands.  He recognizes that vibration, too-- has he not held the First Blade?  This is a weapon that wants to taste blood.  This is a weapon that wants to  _ kill _ .  

He doesn’t understand.  This is not the way an adversary should act.  This blade is powerful, ancient, priceless.  Why would she want to give it, to Castiel.  “You want to give this to--”

“It comes with a price, of course.”  

_ Of fucking course.   _ Now Dean is back on more familiar ground.  He wraps the blade back up.  “Screw you,” he says.  “I’ll take care of Cas.”   _ I’ll take care of the angel.  The angel is mine.   _

“You don’t even want to hear it, little ox?” Sekhmet asks to his back, as he turns to exit her cave.  She still sounds amused.  

“Nope, not really.  I’ve already got a Blade that came with a price.  Been there.  Done that.  Not interested.  Definitely not interested for Cas.”  

“But it only costs a secret,” she says, very quietly, sounding like she still has a smile on her face.  

That stops him.  He turns his head a quarter turn back in her direction.  “Who’s secret?”  

“Yours.”  

“Any secret, I want to give you?”

“As long as you have never told anyone else.”  

Where to even start.  Dean has so many secrets he has never told anyone else that he could write them on post-it notes and wallpaper a room with them.  It would be a scary fucking room.  

“That’s all?  And then I get that knife, for Cas?  It doesn’t like, eat away at his soul or or turn him into stone or make him go blind or whatever bullshit?”

“It only makes him a killer.”  A chill goes through Dean.  “But he was that, already.  For you.”  

Dean turns to face her.  “One secret?’

“Only one.”  She is definitely smiling now.  Her snake is tilting back and forth with its eyes closed like it has just taken a hit of the  _ best  _ drugs.  

Dean steps forward, and then steps forward again.  He knows what he is going to tell her.  He knows right away, though he has so many secrets; he doesn’t even sort through them.  But he wants to be close to her, when he tells it.  He doesn’t want to tell it, too loud.  He doesn’t want anyone else to hear it.  

“You have a secret for me, Master?”  Somehow he thinks that she already knows, before he even says it.  Somehow he thinks that  _ this _ , this right here, is the real reason she came to his throne room with a bleeding demon.  This is why she dug through her crate of priceless weapons.  This is why she goaded him, here.  

He recognizes all of this, but it doesn’t matter.  He’s not sure he could stop himself now, if he tried.  He looks right into her eyes, green into gold.  His mouth opens, and the first word he tries to form comes out as only a croak.  He looks away, and clears his throat, then looks at her again.  She is still smiling.  

“I love him.  I love him, the angel.  Castiel.”  

She closes her eyes, and starts to wave her body back and forth like the snake.  Her lips look very red, all of a sudden, and she hums.  “Mmmmmmmm.”  She hands over the bundle without opening her eyes, and melts away, back down onto her couch, still humming, “mmmmmmmm.”  

Their transaction is over.  They are not enemies, for now.  But they are not friends, either.  Dean smokes out, without another word.  

 

\---Present---

 

Castiel finds Dean in the cache, after he has finished with the cult leader in the plane of fire.  In the cache, just where Castiel thought he would be.  And there, his knives, or some of them, are hanging back up on the back wall, bright and shining.  The rest of the cache is still in wreckage, but there are his knives, given pride of place.  Dean took care of them first.  He knew, out of all that was wrecked here, armor and tables and basin, what was most important.  Castiel smiles a small, grim, smile, in spite of the news he has come to bear.  Dean knows him so well.  Dean loves him, so well.

And that is the feeling that he senses in Dean, through the bond, as he enters.  Love.  There is no other word for it, that is what Dean is feeling.  Love.  He is knelt in the cluttered pile of the knives still on the ground, and he is placing Castiel’s scarab-knife on the wall, just so, and he is looking at it with warm, wet eyes.  The feeling is so strong in him that it almost makes him glow.  He shines, so golden, the sun, Castiel’s love.

Castiel drops a heavy step, so that Dean will hear him approach.  Dean glances back, but his hands don’t move from where they hold Castiel’s scarab knife in its place on the wall.  He doesn’t stand, to meet Castiel.

So Castiel goes to him, and kneels behind him, and wraps his hands around Dean’s waist, and kisses the back of his neck.  Warm and soft, for just a moment, before he has to deliver the hard, ugly knowledge the cult leader gave him, and answer the hard questions he knows will follow.  He swallows, and kisses Dean one more time.

“The cult leader is no more, Master,” he says quietly, into Dean’s neck.  “He is now the demon Gary, sworn to your service, forever.”  A hint of a wry smile, on Cas’ lips, against Dean’s skin.

Dean shakes a small laugh, at the name of his new demon.  “And how does… Gary serve me?”  

“I annihilated him, Master.  He softens the ground in the plane of fire, with his ashes.  He deserved no better.”  

There is a pause.  Then: “Why did you annihilate him, Cas?”  Dean asks very quietly, the glow that was suffusing his skin lessening until it is gone.  Like he knows, there must be some terrible reason, and can not sustain his brightness in its face.  The face of whatever terrible story that explains what happened in Iowa, explains why the leader of the cult he met there is now ash in the plane of fire.   Annihilated, instead of serving him in Hell, or on Earth.  What could he have told Cas, to earn that fate of all the fates that faced him?  

Castiel wishes that he did not have to answer Dean.  He knows that his answer will hurt, and he wishes that Dean's heart did not ever have to hurt, not ever again.  He cannot bear it, when Dean's heart is sore.  

He laces Dean’s fingers in his own, and kisses the back of his neck again, with soft lips.  “Come with me to our room, Dean.  Come with me--”  he tries to stall.  Just for a moment, just for an hour, or one night. He doesn't want to have to tell this news, face this ugliness, be the one that does this to Dean.  There is so much of softness, that he could have instead.  Dean could take him--

“Cas,” Dean interrupts.  Not sharp, but stern.  “Why is my new demon in ashes?  Why does he have to serve me  _ that _ way?  What did he tell you?”  He is too keyed up, too sharp, too fearful, to be distracted.

Castiel hangs his head against Dean’s shoulder.  “Master.”  He releases Dean’s hand, and slides his palms around Dean’s waist, again, so his arms are wrapping Dean up, in an embrace.  He whispers his answer into Dean's neck.  Like if he says it quietly enough, it won't be real.  Like maybe Dean won't hear him and will forget it and take Castiel’s hand again and let himself be led to their room.  As quiet as the stagnant water in the cache, he speaks:  “He told me what ritual he was truly hoping to complete in Iowa.  He told me what it is that his cult worships.”  

“Lucifer?” Dean asks, darkly hopeful.  How heavy it makes Castiel's heart, that Dean is hoping for that -- a Lucifer cult trying to end the world.  How it sinks his heart, down into the cold grey sea, to know that the reality is so much worse.

Castiel shakes his head against Dean’s shoulder, in negation.

“Then… what?”  

How to say this.  “You might say that they… worship… us.”  

“Us?”

“You, and… me.  Or, the love we have for each other.”

“Cas, what the fuck, you’re not making any sense.  They were a Lucifer cult.  They called me ‘Prince of Darkness’.”  

Castiel feels very uncomfortable.  He shifts on his knees.  “That was… that was a ruse.”

Dean is starting to get agitated, Castiel can feel it in the tenseness of his body where it presses against his chest.  “A  _ ruse _ Cas?  What the fuck!  I might not have interrogated the guy, but I met him, he’s no Professor fucking Moriarty.  What  _ ruse?”   _

_ “ _ Dean, they just wanted… they wanted to get you there, to their…  _ lair _ if you can call it that, so they could shed blood for you.  That’s why they touched you.  That’s why they cut themselves.  That’s why they said ‘All for you.’  It  _ was _ for you.  You, not Lucifer. Their blood, for you.”

“Connect the dots for me here Cas.”  Dean’s voice is irritated but his body is shaking like a leaf.

Castiel closes his eyes.  “They know about our… blood bond and they were trying to… strengthen it.  With their own blood.”

Dean turns around suddenly, shouting “WHAT?” Knives scatter around them as he turns, too fast.  His eyes are black. His voice is angry smoke.  “Why would they?  Cas, what the fuck?  Why would they do that?  Why would  _ anyone _ , do that?”  

“This is the shape the universe has taken, Dean.  This is what we have made of it, with our blood.”   _ This is why blood magic is anathema.  This is why it is forbidden, to the angels.  “ _ Our oath has called this cult forth, and probably others like it.  We have to be prepared for that-- that these are only the first.  They worship our bond fanatically, and they will try to strengthen it with their own spilled blood.  There are no angels in Heaven, anymore, and you rule, in the Pit, and Hell is only a place to wait out eternity in a long line that never moves.  But the Earth still turns, and comes to balance.  This is the new order.”  He pauses, and looks up into Dean's eyes, from under his lashes.  “All for you.”

“Cas--”  Dean sags, against him.  “So we did this.  Those assholes… They offed themselves, for  _ us _ , is that what you're saying?  No mystery here? No end of the world?  Just our promise to each other, and a basement full of idiots.”

“Yes, Dean… I suppose you could put it like that.”  Dean has always had a way of… Capturing the essentials of a situation.

“We did this,”  Dean whispers again, horrified.  His body is limp, sagged against Castiel's chest, his face hidden in Castiel's neck, so Castiel is not prepared for what Dean does next.  He is not prepared when Dean picks up one of Castiel's knives from the pile--the diamond, a dagger-- and stabs it into his own thigh with a grunt of pain.  

 

\---Past---

 

Scylla survived the siege on the bunker.  He survived because he knew Sam Winchester’s weaknesses; they had been whispered in his ears through the shimmering, runed bars of the Cage.  He knew Sam did not  _ like  _ to kill, not like his brother, the psychopath, the one who made the racks go silent, in fear and awe, when he worked them, black eyed.  Sam did not like to kill, and Scylla did not make him, and so he survived. 

Scylla hung at the back of the mob of water demons when they stormed through Castiel's portal up from the Pit.  He let the young ones, the foolish ones, go first, run for safety, run and claw for a chance to escape the bunker and see the light again.  He let them be mowed down, while the angel clutched the Master to his chest, and whispered in his ear.  He watched Naga hide in the shadows while the young ones ran; he watched Hydra stumble up and out of the bunker, behind a bulwark of younger demons, blinded, useless.  

When only Scylla was left, he parried Sam's blows, and did not try to press his ground.  He did not try to win, he only tried not to die.  He did not make himself seem so dangerous that Sam would have to kill him.  He let himself be distracted, he did not show his teeth.  He ran a little too slow, he did not scream ugly words in his ancient language; he did not curse the angel’s name though he had been bidden to do so.  When Sam slammed a door behind himself and began to do banishing spellwork, Scylla pounded on the door, but he did not try to break it down.  

Scylla let himself be banished, and he survived.

Scylla knew the Master’s weaknesses, too.  Number one:  the angel.  And he had reason to hate the angel, who had put him to the yoke and sent him to die.  He had reason to want the angel to hurt.

So he came again to the throne room, where he had been subjugated by the angel, hateful one.  He came again when the Master sat the throne and the angel stood at his side.  He came again and he brought Basilisk, one of his creatures, not a demon, not beholden to the King’s mandate.  He brought Basilisk, with the skin of stone.

He strolled down the marbled aisle that leads from the throne room entrance, towards where the Master sat, one arm on his armrest, the other around the angel's waist.  One of the Master's knees was drawn up, the other sprawled carelessly; his eyes were black, he was smiling.  But the angel stood still and straight as a sword.   _ His _ eyes were hard, and blue, and they narrowed as soon as Scylla entered, and they followed his movement, uncanny, unblinking, as demon and Basilisk advanced up the aisle.

“Nice pet,” the Master said when they approached.  Still smiling.  With his mouth, but not his black eyes.  

The angel was not smiling, hard one, hateful one.  “You survived.”  Disappointed.  “I did not call you here.  Or your… creature.”  His eyes did not leave Scylla’s.  “You know what happened, to Mammon, Belial, Andariel, Duriel, Yeteriel.  They too came when the hadn't been called.”  Yeteriel’s head was not spiked on the throne, anymore, but Scylla remembered.  He had gone to the Cage for the first time, after that.  He did not want to end up a head on a spike.  

“How many times will I have to kill you?”  The angel continued, voice of stone,  hateful, hateful.

Scylla tilted his head and smiled at the angel, a terrible smile.  He snapped his fingers.  Basilisk leapt forward, his jaw opened and aimed at the Master’s neck.  

Basilisk did not reach the Master’s neck, of course.  The angel stepped in front of him, quick as a flash, and raised his blade.  It was steel, and it was thrust true, precise, deadly, and it scratched Basilisk’s stone skin directly over his heart.  

And then it shattered into splinters.  

The smile on Scylla’s face grew.  Basilisk ignored the scratch.  He finished his leap.  His three rows of teeth sank into the angel’s shoulder and the full weight of his stone body slammed into the angel’s chest and forced him backwards, into the throne.  He grunted, in surprise, in pain.  The Master called out his name, “Cas,” in the same moment, surprised too, terrified.  

The Master was terrified.  The angel was hurt.  Scylla laughed a single bark of laughter, and disappeared from the throne room with another snap of his fingers.  He didn’t want to end up as a head spiked on a throne.  He didn’t need to see the Master vanish from the throne and appear at Basilisk’s neck, First Blade in hand, and cut across Basilisk’s eyes, where he was soft, into his brain, softer, and kill him.  He had terrified the Master.  He had hurt the angel.  That was enough.  

He survived.  

 

*****

 

In the Arctic Circle there is a crystal golem.  Their name is Ishkar.  They live in a diamond palace, resembling the fortress of solitude, glittering in the frozen snowscape.  They look like walking clusters of broken mirror, sharp edged, held together and animated by magic, glinting back bright shards of light off of their facets as they walk under the sun in the thin atmosphere.  

They do not interfere in the affairs of humans, angels, demons.  They are immortal.  They do not take a side.  They are not interested.  They would rather count all of the grains of frozen snow that surround their palace.  Because at the end of that labor they would know the number of grains of snow they are surrounded by.  That labor would not be futile, unlike the clashes and screeches of humans and their deities.  

They stand above.  If God disappears or returns, if Lucifer rises or is caged, if there is a new Master, they do not care.   

When Dean Winchester appears, black eyed, hellhounds baying at his feet, they do not care about that either.  He tells them why he has come.  They hear him, but they do not listen.  He threatens them.  With death, with breaking.  They do not react, why would they.  They cannot die.  They cannot be broken.  

They see the human draw its blade.  It looks like teeth.  There is an old magic on it, a magic that swirls around its edges, curls around the human’s ibex horns.  They have not seen this magic before.  They stare at it, with their mirror eyes.  They do not like it.  

The human talks about an angel.  Its words hang in the air, covered in love.  It doesn't say ‘love’, it doesn't have to.  Its words are brighter than the arctic sun.  Their light erases the black magic swirling around the toothy blade.  

Ishkar ignores the human, goes about their business, striding through the palace, long toed, glass-shard feet clicking on the crystal floors, echoing in hallways that have nothing of softness to absorb the sound.  They think maybe if they ignore the human it will go away, but it follows them, at their heels.  It talks more about its angel.  Its angel was hurt.  Its angel was trying to protect it.  Its angel is precious, and cannot be left vulnerable.  Every word strikes a spark in the cold air, glints and reflects and flickers down the hallway, following their progress like sparklers filmed in slow motion.  The hellhounds glide behind like smoke.  

They lead the human and its pets to a balcony, that looks out on the setting sun, and the far-reaching icewhite.  They have a mouth, but they never say a word.  They still ignore the human as it continues to talk, and instead stare out at the colors that are painted on the horizon.  All of these colors have names.  All of these colors are different, from the crystal shine of the palace.  Ishkar looks at them every day, and every day they are not the same as the day before.  They try to name them, silently, while the human still talks.  

And talks and talks.  The sun slides down a fraction, and all its colors change, and the human has still not gone away, though Ishkar has not replied to it, or even looked in its direction all this time.  Why does it persist?  It seems to be something about the angel.  It keeps talking, about the angel.  The angel.  It raises its blade again, like it is preparing for violence, not understanding that that is futile.  Ishkar does not react.  The human attacks.  Slicing its blade across Ishkar’s chest.  Ishkar does not try to stop it.  Nothing happens.  The blade does not even scratch Ishkar’s shine.  

The human’s eyes were black, but now they flick green.  Surprised.  It attacks again.  Again, Ishkar does not try to stop it.  Again, nothing happens.  

Ishkar looks down at the human.  They are several feet taller than it is.  Their head tilts sharply.  “Why are you still here?”  They ask.  This human has talked to them.  Threatened them, followed them, talked to them again, attacked them.  The threats, the talk, the attack, they have not affected Ishkar.  They cannot.  But still, the human is here.  And ‘Angel’, it says again.  ‘My angel.’

_ My love _ , thinks Ishkar.  This is what the human means.  This is why the human is still here.  

Ishkar knows about love.  Ishkar has loved, a long time ago, before they were alone here in the arctic.  Ishkar loved another one of their kind.  Ishkar loved a sorceress, on Earth.  Ishkar loved the night sky.  

“What do you want?”  Ishkar asks.  The human huffs.  It has explained what it wants before?  It has explained this already?  Ishkar was not listening then.  They are listening now.    

“I told you.  My angel faced a basilisk.  He was trying to protect me.  His knife broke, and he was scratched.  He bled.  In front of me.  Trying to protect me.”  The human repeats this phrase.  

Ishkar understands about protection.  They tried to protect their sorceress, when the other humans came for her, with fire.  They protected her too well.  They killed the humans.  After that, the sorceress did not love them anymore.  That is when they built the arctic palace.  That is when they fell in love with the night sky, instead.  

They nod.  The human continues.  

“He can’t… He is  _ mine _ .  He can’t be hurt like that again.  I can’t  _ let  _ him be hurt like that again.  If some stone-hearted shit head comes after him again, his blade  _ cannot  _ break.  He  _ cannot  _ be scratched.   _ I do not allow it _ .”  

_ I am the only one who breaks the skin _ , Ishkar hears, echoing on the human’s words.   _ I do not allow it _ , they hear in another voice, a deeper one, a voice that has blue eyes.   _ Always _ , they hear.   _ Forever.   _   The ‘Forever’ rings deep in their head, rings and rings and echoes down the mirrored hall behind them, until the balcony starts to shake and smaller crystals, growing in the eaves, shatter and fall to the floor.  

Ishkar understands about forever.  They did not think that there was anything that was forever, on this planet.  Anything besides themselves.  Ishkar wishes that their sorceress could have been forever.  But she was not.  That is another reason that Ishkar had to fall in love with the night sky.  

“Ishkar will help you,” Ishkar says, their voice like a crystal chime.  

The human’s body relaxes.  It puts away its blade.  Good.  Ishkar did not like the way the magic swirled around it.  

Ishkar holds their right hand out to the human.  They spread their six long fingers.  Fingers like blades.  “Choose,” they say.

The human startles, looks up at Ishkar, from where its gaze was fixed on Ishkar’s hand.  “Really?  That easy?”

The human thinks that was easy?  To appear to Ishkar in the arctic, threaten them, attack them, survive, earn the love of an angel, be bound together forever, echo through all of time?  This is an interesting human, to count that as easy.  Ishkar thinks they made a mistake, not listening to it when it first arrived in the fortress.  They are old, they have made many mistakes.  They know to admit them.  They know how to try to do better.  They will listen now.

They nod again.  “Ishkar understands love.  Ishkar understands forever,” they say, by way of explanation.  They extend their elbow another inch, pushing their hand towards the human.  “Choose.”  

The human reaches out for Ishkar’s smallest finger, which itself is just longer than the human’s hand.  When he touches it, it cuts him, and he bleeds.  “Fuck!”  it says.  “What the fuck?”  it looks up at Ishkar’s face, looking for betrayal, anger, violence.  

There is none there.  Ishkar is impassive.  “They are sharp,” they say.  “They are made to cut.  If you want them, your skin will be opened.”  They are almost sad when they finish; “There is no other way.”  They don’t want this small, strange, interesting human to hurt, or to bleed, but it came here for something sharp.  It came here for something that cuts, and cannot be broken.  For that, there is a price.  There is no other way.  Will the human leave now?  Or attack Ishkar again?  Or try to plead with Ishkar, to convince them to break off one of their fingers themselves?  

But the human surprises Ishkar.  The human’s face becomes hard, determined.  It looks at Ishkar’s hand again, where its own blood now drips red, the only red in the entire palace, in the entire arctic.  It does not try to wrap its hands with its shirt, it does not summon armor, or gloves, though Ishkar can feel that it could, can see red leather, swirling with that same smoky magic.  This human understands the price, Ishkar thinks.  That is why it does not try to protect itself before it raises both of its hands, and wraps them around Ishkar’s little finger.

The hands pull.  They are cut to the bone almost immediately.  There is a lot of blood.  It drips down onto the floor, where it pools.  Ishkar thinks they will leave it there, let it stay there, count its color, red, every day when they count the colors of the sun, so that they can remember this human.  This human who is brave.

Ishkar does not understand bravery.  They are immortal.  They are diamond hard.  They cannot be hurt, they cannot be killed.  They only love the night sky, which cannot be taken away.  They cannot be brave, because they don’t have anything to lose.  They wouldn’t be able to bleed, for the night sky, even if it asked them to.  

Their finger breaks off in the human’s hands.  It doesn’t hurt when it goes.  Ishkar cannot feel pain, that is another reason why they cannot be brave.  “For your angel,” Iskhar says, to the human, who is standing there still, breathing hard, eyes closed, waiting for its hands to heal around the pain.  “So he won’t be hurt again.”  

 

\---Present---

 

It bleeds, and heals, where diamond blade meets demon skin, and then Dean twists the knife until it bleeds again.  The Mark is lit red on Dean's arm.  It must hurt, this wounding, but still Dean grinds the blade in deeper, against bone, every time it starts to heal.  “I knew it,” He is saying over and over, eyes glazed.  “I knew I didn't get to have you.”

_ Oh, Dean. _

“What're we going to do, Cas?”  Dean turns his body to look at him, their legs now tangled, and his eyes are wet.  Castiel knows it is not because of the pain in his leg.  That would not make Dean cry. “What are we going to do?”  He sounds lost, and so much younger, than he is.  A lost boy.  Not the Master, infallible and hard.  

Castiel looks at him carefully, and carefully doesn't move.  He speaks softly. “It hurts me, when you do that.”  His eyes lower a fraction, towards Dean's blood stained thigh.  “It hurts my heart.  It hurts my body, through the bond.”  He covers Dean's hand, where it holds the hilt of the diamond dagger, with his own.  “Please.”  He looks back at Dean, with full eyes.  

Dean releases the dagger, and it clatters to the ground.  “Sorry, Cas,” He mumbles, head down.  “Just --- sorry.”  He doesn't raise his head.  

The phantom pain in Castiel's leg is replaced by the sucking black shame that coats Dean's chest.  Castiel does not let go of Dean’s hand.   _ Oh, Dean.  My heart.  How many long years will have to pass before you realize that you do not ever have to be ashamed, for me. _

“I just don't… I just don't know what to do, Cas.  What do I do, now, with this bullshit dropped in my lap?  What  **can** I do? _ ” _

Castiel knew this question would come.   _ “ _ There is a way…” his heart trembles.  “There is a way to erase these cults.”  His voice is slow, with too much space between each word, because he wants to tell this even less than he wanted to tell the news he has already delivered.  But he tells himself to be brave.  He gathers himself, he sits straighter, he lengthens his spine.  He tells himself it would be wrong, not to offer Dean this.

Dean just looks at him.  He can tell by the slowness, by the pauses between Castiel’s words that this will not be a good option.  Darkness lurks, in those pauses.   _ But when have I ever had good options?   _ Dean is brave, too.  He waits for the sword to fall.  He does not try to avoid it.  He never has.

_ So brave.  My love.   _

Castiel fills his lungs with a deep breath.  He will be brave, too.  “We could break the bond.”  

It comes out quiet, despite his full lungs, almost a whisper.  He sags again immediately after the words have left his mouth.  Those were hard words. Those words took his strength.  Those words call to mind the fever dreams he had during his Fall, the dreams where Dean had to lock him in a dark Cage, because he was too insane and mind broken to be anywhere else.  He will break the bond, if Dean asks it of him, if Dean prefers that sundering to a future where strange cultists lure him out of his home and cut themselves and bleed on him and die and and spend their last energy to touch him and spend their last words to say “All for you.”  If Dean would rather break the bond than face that future, Cas will hate it, he will cry, his heart still shatter, but he will break the bond.  He will do it, if Dean asks.  But Dean will have to put him in the Cage, after.  He will be too broken to be anywhere else.    

Dean's head snaps up.  Castiel feels the shame in Dean's heart explode, like a volcano.  Hot and dark clouds dirtied with flakes of embered ash.  

Dean reaches for Castiel's face, and holds it as desperately as he held the knife, before. He scrabbles forward, closer to Cas, on his knees.  “Cas,” his voice is hollow; it sounds like tears, it sounds so disappointed.  It sounds like someone is dead.  “Is that what you want?”  He breaks, before he even finishes.  His head hangs low, then looks at Cas, then hangs low again, like he wants to watch Castiel’s expression, hoping to see negation there, but at the same time he can't bear to watch, fearing to see affirmation instead.

Castiel's eyes soften, and he leans in towards Dean, pulled by his heart _.  Dean would rather stay mine.  Rather stay mine than be safe from that mad violence.   _ His heart surges, and he covers the hands Dean has on his face with his own.  “No, Dean.  Not ever.  No matter what comes.  I promised you,  _ forever.” _

Dean's relief washes in to the bond like a fresh, clear, sea.   _ He actually thought I might say yes,  _ Castiel marvels.   _ Even after the cliff's edge.  He still thought I might say yes.  For the lives of three humans?  Over one garage floor stained with blood?  It would take so much more, than that.  That is so little, and there is nothing…  There may be nothing, that would make me say ‘yes’, to that.  Nothing I can imagine.   _

“You can't leave me, Cas.  You can't.  Need you.  I'm not strong enough, without you.  Need you to be mine.  Always.”  Dean collapses against Castiel, tired, limp as a rag, clutching tight.  

_ I have to get my mark on him.  I have to let him feel it.  He has to  _ **_know._ ** _ That there is nothing that would make me leave him.  That he is forever shameless, in my eyes.  That I will be with him forever. That we will float together on clouds of stardust when all the worlds have been destroyed. _

Castiel pets Dean's hair and shushes him. “Ssshhh.  Ssshhh.  I'm here, Dean.  I'm here with you.  I'm yours.  Always yours.  Only yours.”  

Dean cries against him, knelt, hunched over, body bent in half and awkward on the hard stone floor.  This has been such a hard day, for Dean, Castiel thinks, as he comforts him.  The cult.  The deaths.  The wreckage of the cache.  The intimacy of the cliff's edge.  The presumed fight with Sam.  The revelation of what the cult sought.  And even now, this, just the  _ question,  _ the moment of imagining the breaking of the bond between them.  

Such a hard day, Castiel thinks, as he strokes Dean's hair.  His emotions, every one, empathetic and murderous and fearful and loving have all been pulled apart and stretched wide like telephone wires over long, hard, stretches of cold Kansas ground.  

“We will find another way to oppose them,” Castiel reassures, trying to sound certain, though he is not sure what that way will be.  Dean doesn't really hear him, he can tell, he is so lost in his shame, and fear, and grief.  

_ And love.  Love for you _ .

“And I will take care of you.”  That he is certain of.  That he can guarantee, absolutely and without fear.  That is his duty, and his honor.  That is one of the reasons he was made, spun out of light and divinity.

Dean only nods his assent.  A small, sad, nod.  Like that is all he has left, after this day.  Smallness.  And sadness.  

Castiel takes his hand, and they disappear from the cache on a wisp of cool air.    

 

*****

 

In their room, Castiel holds Dean in a bridal carry.  The stone floors are hard under his bare feet, but Dean's body is soft and warm against his chest.  Dean’s arms are wrapped loose around his neck, and Dean’s face is buried in his shoulder.  Dean is quiet, and still, but his eyes are wet.  Flickers of torchlight play across his pale back.

Castiel stands for a second, strong, holding Dean, holding his whole weight, thinking.  

He could set Dean down on their bed, and kiss his body.  He would go slow, his tongue would trace the words of his devotion.  His eyes would be wide open, and he would never look away.

He could set Dean's feet down on the floor, and hold him steady, and check him for hurts, and wounds, like he planned to before Dean arrived in the cache with the cult leader slung over his shoulder.  He would turn him slowly, so slowly, with one finger, and check him so carefully.  

But kisses don't calm, and they ask for too much.  And Dean is too shaky, now, to stand for an inspection, and besides, any wounds he carries from his trip to Iowa are not visible on his skin.  

What can Castiel give Dean, that does not ask for anything in return?  What can show Dean, that he is still Castiel’s hero, no matter what evil worships him, or why?  No matter what blood is spilled, no matter what fires burn, no matter what darkness falls?   He asks himself this, Dean heavy in his arms.  

He decides.  He knows what he has wanted, when his mind has run away from him, and life has seemed too hard.  

He carries Dean to their bathroom, and sets him down on the edge of their tub.  Even sitting, Dean is gummy, off-balance.  It has been too much, today has just been too much for Dean. Castiel keeps a hand on the small of his back.   _ I'm here,  _ that hand says.   _ I won't let you fall. _

Castiel turns on the water, all the jets, and tests the temperature.  He waits, he adjusts the dials, until the temperature is exactly one one billionth of the temperature of his core when he was a star.  That is the temperature that will soothe Dean's muscles, but not blister his skin.   _ Just right.   _ Castiel wishes that he could be a star again, and heat this water with his light.  But he is not a star, and his hands will have to do.

One of these hands stays solid on the small of Dean's back while he helps Dean take off his jeans, his boxers. They are wet from kneeling in the stagnant water pooled in the cache.  They can't be comfortable, though Dean doesn't seem to care-- he takes them off listlessly, slowly, and lets them pile on the floor. They are pocked with blood, still, tiny splatters, but Castiel does not react when he notices.  He does not want to draw Dean’s attention, or cause him alarm.  And his own clothes are pocked with worse, anyway.  Fine ash made from annihilated human flesh in the plane of fire.  So he does not react, he only stays calm, and his hand only stays steady on Dean's back.  The blood is not Dean's.  It's not Dean's, so it doesn't matter, not right now.  Only the slow love pounding its beat through his heart, matters now.  Only Dean matters now.

They are silent, silent.  Castiel does not talk.  Talking asks too much.  Castiel only looks, and touches, and helps.  Dean does not talk.  Talking costs too much, and can be so wrongly interpreted.   _ They called me Prince of Darkness.  They called me Lightbringer.   _ Dean only turns his head up, lips parted, eyes wide and still wet, silently asking Castiel for a kiss.  

Castiel kisses him.  Short but wet.  He leans over, to kiss Dean deeper, to taste more of his mouth, to thread his hand into the hair at Dean’s nape and cup the back of his head.  But he pulls away when Dean whines, and tries to wrap an arm around Castiel’s waist.  Kisses ask too much.  Castiel looks away, from Dean's lust dark eyes.  He has to, or he would not be able to deny them.  

He looks away, but he keeps one hand on the small of Dean's back --  _ I'm here.  I won't let you fall --  _ and uses his other on Dean’s arm to keep Dean steady when, now naked, he steps over the lip of the tub, and settles in its deep recesses.  

The tub is large, and dark, and it swallows Dean up; he looks small, and pale, against its back corners.  He keeps backing up, backing up, and chafing his hands against each other like he is trying to hide, get away.  Not from Cas.  From what is in his head.  Blood on the concrete in Iowa.  The cold endlessness of immortality, without Castiel.

The light in the bathroom doesn't flicker, it is even, bright, fluorescent, and Dean squints his eyes like the light is hurting them.  So Castiel turns the lights off.  He calls candles, fat and round and white.  He lights them with his fingertips.  

Dean's eyes open up again, then, and Castiel's chest warms when he sees the green there, reflecting the golden candlelight.   _ So beautiful.   _ Those eyes, open for Castiel.  Because of him, and his devotion.  This is true to his calling.  This is his duty, even Fallen, to safeguard and comfort his charge, always, forever. It makes his cells feel right.  It makes him feel like he is a part of this plane, instead of vibrating against it, trying to tear through, angel of the Lord, Falken, in Hell, wrong and impossible and about to tear.  

Dean rests his head back against the edge of the tub but the tub is marble, it is too hard for that.  Castiel can do better.  He rolls up a towel, and urges Dean to lift his head with two fingers on his jaw, and places it behind Dean’s neck.  When Dean rests his head again, and is pillowed in softness, his eyes close, and his face relaxes.

The warmth in Castiel's chest grows, and love hums between them, and makes the candles flicker a little higher, a little more golden.

And they are silent.  Words would still take too much from Dean, Castiel knows.  This is not about explanations and inquest.  This is about Dean finally having a moment, or just a few moments, where nothing is asked of him.  Where his emotions are only his own and are not being tugged by forces he cannot control.  He does not have to be the Master.  He does not have to be brave.  He only has to let Castiel take care of him.  He only has to be, to exist, and know that Castiel will keep him safe and warm and treasure him like a perfect pearl in a velvet box _.  Hero.   _ Just being Dean, is enough.  Even silent, exhausted, bathed in blood.  Even then, just being Dean is enough.  

Castiel calls again the copper basin that he had called in the cache while Dean faced the cultists.  He calls it new, not dented and broken.  New and shining again.  He fills it with hot water from the tap, and rose oil this time, not citrus.  The rose calls to mind a storm, and Dean…

_ That Dean made so much noise, underneath him.  This Dean is silent, because words cost too much.  That is the rule of the dream.  Or is it not?  Is that the rule that is dangerous?  Is silence the rule that costs?  Is silence the only thing that's not ok? _

Castiel blinks.  That was a Dean, a rule, that he does not remember.  

He does not try to trace down the memory.  He knows there are many things that he does not know.  He knows he has been brainwashed, but he does not know how many times.  By Uriel, by Zachariah, by Naomi, by himself and his own two fingers.  And now they are dead, and he is Fallen, and Dean… He is so tired, he is hurting, his hero.  He needs all of Castiel's touch, all of his heart, all of his focus.  So now is not the time to follow that forgotten thread, that forgotten--  _ beautiful-- _ Dean.  Now is the time to be dutiful.  To care for his hero with his hands, since his wings have been sundered.  Now, nothing else matters, but Dean.  

He calls a stack of soft linen towels.  These are what he uses, to wash Dean, in the silence.  He washes away the dirt from the cliff's edge that still sticks to the sweat on Dean's neck.  He washes away the cultist blood, under his fingernails, spattered in tiny specks on his skin.  He washes away the demon blood that has turned black around the self-inflicted, now healed, wound on Dean’s thigh.  He is especially gentle, there, and Dean close his eyes and exhales hard, when he touches.    

And then there is nothing left to clean away, there are no mars to Dean’s pale skin, just the contours of his body slick with water, fragrant with rose oil, hairless or thatched thick with dark hair.  And though Dean is clean, Castiel keeps washing, touching; twisting out the towels over Dean’s body, following the water with long, slow strokes of his hands.  

Dean's eyes stay closed.  Little hums escape his lips as Castiel's hands move on his body and his muscles relax in the hot water.  

And then  _ just _ Castiel’s hands, no towel, no oils, just his hands, gentle on Dean’s neck, his forearms, massaging away sore places, loosening, so gentle.  Lacing his fingers with Dean’s where Dean’s right hand rests on the lip of the tub.  Holding Dean’s hand.  Sitting on the hard floor, head rested back against the lip of the tub, silent, holding Dean’s hand.  

It was not long ago that Castiel held the pain of the cult leader in his fist, red and sparking hot.  Fire burst behind him, and his eyes were like iron, and he was wrath, he was final judgement, he was fiercesome.  But now he holds Dean's hand instead.  This is what he would rather have in his hand, than pain, though then, and now, he belongs to the Master.  

Dean's fingers are thicker than Castiel's, and so strong, but now they tremble.  

Castiel has been in this bathtub himself, when his mind was running in circles and he couldn’t get it to stop.  He knows that this is a good place.  This is a safe place.  And Dean is not alone, like Castiel was.  Dean has Castiel right there, sitting on the floor and holding his hand.  Dean has Castiel.  Forever.

 

*****

 

“I used to smoke.  When I was a teenager.”  This is how Dean breaks the silence, finally, head still tilted back on the towel Castiel placed under his neck, eyes still closed.

“I know,” Castiel replies solemnly.  He put Dean’s body back together.  He knows every dead cell that was in Dean’s lungs.  He knows every tiny cancer growing there.  

“I knew it was bad for me, but I didn’t care.  Figured I’d be dead soon anyway, so it didn’t matter.”

“Dean--”

“Did a lot of shit when I was a human, when I thought I was going to die.  Guess I wasn't wrong about that, I died a lot of times.”

“Dean--”

“But you kept bringing me back.”

“I did.”  A fact, solemn and hard and undeniable.  

Dean pauses, splashes his fingers in the water in little taps.  Thinking about how to go on.  “But now I’m not gonna die anymore, you know?  Immortal now.  And I could do all that bad for me shit if I wanted to, have done some, with Crowley, the drugs, the crazy sex, taken Baby out too fast.  I’ve howled at the moon.  It feels ok, I guess.  But it's not what I want, if I'm gonna be kickin around forever.”

“What do you want?”  Castiel’s voice is very careful.  He is very still, leant against the bathtub wall.  He thinks he knows.  Or hopes he does.

“I want.. I only want things that are  _ right _ .  That make me  _ right.   _ Now what I do  _ does _ matter.  Matters a lot cuz I’m  _ not  _ gonna die.  Cuz whatever I do, I'm going to have to live with that shit forever.”

“That is a price, of immortality.”  Castiel knows.  The things he remembers…. The things he has probably forgotten... “Though you could make yourself forget--”

“Don’t want to forget.” _. _

Castiel nods, slowly, though Dean can't see it with his eyes still closed, head still tilted back.

“Would you really have broken the bond?”  Dean asks.  

“If you had asked it of me.  I would have done it.  Yes.  For you.”

Dean splashes his free hand against the water, harder this time.  “Cas--”

“I would not have  _ wanted _ to,” Castiel continues, narrowing his eyes.  “But I would have done it, for you.  If you couldn’t face the existence of the cults, and their… worship.”  He closes his eyes all the way, presses his lids together, exhales.  Not wanting to imagine.  

“Anything you ask of me, Dean.  I will give it. I will always come when you call.”   _ Or go when you send me away, though I hope you never do.  “ _ I always have, even when you have called me from beyond death.”

Dean does not respond to this immediately, but reaches out for Castiel's hand and pulls it over the rim of the tub so he can kiss his knuckles, softly.  The water in the tub sloshes gently against its sides with his movement.  

“Can’t live forever without what’s right, Cas.  Can’t live forever without you.  Don't  wanna. I can deal with a lot of shit, but never that.  Promise me.”

Castiel tugs their joined hands back to his side of the tub, so he can take a turn kissing the back of Dean’s hand. “Never that.  I promise,” he repeats, lips against Dean’s skin.  The bond thrums between them.  Castiel swallows, waits for the them to subside, continues.  “I went to Sekhmet. I traded her a secret.  She told me I could give you my name.”

Their hands trade back again, to Dean's lips.  “Want your name, Cas.  Want all of you.”

Castiel shivers at the thread of darkness woven into Dean's voice.  “She told me if I gave you ‘Cas,’ that it couldn’t hurt you, because that name belongs to you already.   That name has always, only, belonged to you.”  

Dean hums, against Castiel's hand.  “Your name.  The bond.  Forever.  That’s what’s right, Cas.  Nothing else.  Promise me.”  

“Anything, Dean.  My name.  The bond.  Nothing else.  Forever.  I promise.”  

The bond throbs again, harder this time.   _ Are more cultists being created now, each time we swear to each other?  Do they hear our words, and cut themselves and make rituals of our promises, to each other?  Does the bond grow stronger, then?  Is that what it costs?   _

_ Does it matter?   _

_ Would it make me choose any differently, if I knew that was the price? _

There is no hesitation, in Castiel’s answer to himself.  

_ No.   _

Immediate.  Absolute.  Everywhere. Like a quake of the Earth.  The room seems to rumble, snap out and back in to focus, with the heaviness and depth of this ‘no’.

Castiel braces himself against the quake with his free hand, pressed on the smooth, cool, floor.   _ Is this what Sam feared?  That I will promise Dean anything? That I don’t care what blood is shed? That he only has to ask, and I am on my knees for him, head bowed, whispering ‘For you, anything.’ _

It doesn't matter.  Sam may be afraid, he may even be right to be afraid, but Castiel is not.  “Anything, Dean.” He repeats.  “You only have to ask.”  

Dean has sworn this to Castiel too,  _ Anything, Anything,  _ but the cast of that promise was different.  Dean swore that he would burn it all down.  Castiel is swearing that he will drop to his knees.  These are different ways, to give everything.     

Dean shifts his body in the tub, and the water sploshes gently.  “You take such good care of me, Cas.  Stopped me cuttin myself, stopped my bleedin’, carried me here, made me comfy, cleaned me up.  The roses…”   _ Roses, daffodils, peonies _ . He shakes his head, as if a wasp were buzzing by.  “Holdin’ my hand, promising me everything, anything, your name, all of you, forever.”  

Castiel dips his head.  “Yes, Dean.  That's… I want to take care of you, always.  Like no one else ever has.  Like no one else ever could.”  He pauses.  “I love you.”   _ You know that. _

“That’s how I can live forever, Cas.  That’s the only way I can stand this, bein’ immortal, havin’ to see all this bullshit day in day out.  The only way.”

_ He loves me, too. _

“Don’t want to howl at the moon.”

_ Only me. _

“Just want you to take care of me, just like this.  I’m not strong enough without you.  Can't do it myself, can't take care of myself, you saw that, you saw what happened in the cache.  Can't live with all this  _ shit.   _ But with you… I Need you.  Need you right here, with me.”

Castiel’s voice is very small.  “I need you too, Dean.”  Dean presses his mouth to Castiel's hand again, keeps kissing, and that is the only reason Castiel can continue on, and be brave.  “If you had made me break the bond…If you had…”   He closes his mouth, shakes his head.  Feels Dean's lips, lips that do not even pause, so reverential, so sincere on his hand. He opens his mouth again, has to clear his throat. “You would have had to put me away.  I wouldn’t have been able to bear it.  It would have been worse than the Fall.”  

Dean holds their hands together, against his cheek.  His voice is very quiet.  “But you still would have done it, even knowing that.”

A shiver of.. Relief, that this was not so, that Dean did not ask, breaks down Castiel's spinal cord.  “Yes.  If you asked.”  

“Cas…”  Dean sounds cored out, raw.  He sounds like he might be about to start crying again.  “Godammit, Cas, you can’t just… you can’t just  _ do _ that kind of shit, for me.”  

“I can.  I will.  I told you.  Anything, for you, always.”  

_ So sure.  Always so goddamned sure, Castiel.  Never a single doubt. _

_ “ _ How can you be so sure?”  Dean asks, and his voice is  _ not  _ sure. It wobbles, like the tears on his eyelids in the candlelight.  “How are you always so goddamned sure?”  The reverence that was in his lips, is now in his voice.   _ Always so goddamned perfect, for me. _

Castiel leans his head back further against the tub, and looks up, towards Heaven.

_ His throat is so exposed.   _ The Mark prickles, on Dean's arm.   _ You could take him, you could have him-- _

Castiel doesn't try to pull his hand back, though he feels the needle heat of the Mark, through the bond.   “I understand forever, Dean.  I understand you.  I know what it means.  I'm sure.”

“But I'm--”   _ He’d be so sweet, for you.  His eyes would be so pretty, if he cried.  You could  _ **_take_ ** _ him.  You could  _ **_have_ ** _ him.  He couldn't stop you.   _ The Mark snarling at him, swirling forward obscene images of him, and Cas, him on top of Cas, like an animal, naked, eyes black, or even red, veins glowing, on fire, muscles straining to fuck him, hold him down, running his hands over Castiel’s body while he cries.  

“You don't know,” He whispers, ashamed, tears rolling over his lids, images still flashing in his mind though his eyes are wide open.  

He can't usually feel the Mark, when he is with Cas, like this.   _ It must be the blood. _ So much blood.   _ Shed in my name _ .  Maybe still being shed in his name, now, somewhere, though he doesn't know it, making him burn.  Making him see… This.

He leans forward, pulls Cas halfway into the tub by their joined hands, pulls himself halfway out, splashing water onto the floor.  He winds his free hand into Castiel's hair, crashes his mouth forward into a kiss.

_ Yes,  _ the Mark flares up, and it does feel good, to take Castiel like this, to be hard with him, and him unresisting.  He bites Castiel's lips, tries to make it rough.

“You don't…”  He forces himself back, the merest centimeter.  “You can't.” he breathes into Castiel’s mouth, still holding tight to Castiel’s hair.   

But Castiel gentles him, pulls back, kisses Dean's cheekbones, the bolt of his jaw.  The red fire under Dean's skin cools to a deep, sucking, ache.  It's a pit inside him, that wants this sweetness, wants more of it, will never get enough.   _ Gonna suck Cas dry,  _ he thinks, sadly.   _ There won't be anything left of him but my need.  Won't be anything left of anything.   _

“I love you.”  

_ So goddamned sure. _  I

“I have always loved you, Dean.  I have always wanted you to be mine, so I could keep you. You have faced so much, that I wish I could have soothed for you.”

He keeps kissing, light and soft on Dean's eyelids, his throat, not understanding why it feels like Dean's heart is breaking, through the bond, to hear that he is loved, that he is cared for, that he will be forever, no matter what.  “Why does that make your heart sore, my king?” Castiel asks, taking Dean's face in his hands.

_ Because of how good you are, and how broken I am.  Because you held my hand and washed me with sweet water while I burned up inside, and had the thoughts of a monster. _

Dean shakes his head, bites his lip, looks down, away from those eyes, those eyes that  _ see  _ him.  He reaches out a wet hand, for Castiel's shoulder.  He whispers, voice cracking open on need and desperation.  “Jus’ need you, Cas.  Be with me.  Please.”

“Anything you want, Dean.  Anything you need.  Forever.”

 

*****

Their bed is only a few feet away.  They could walk to it, easily, no matter Dean’s exhaustion.  But Dean wraps his arms around Castiel’s neck again, and buries his neck in Castiel’s shoulder again, and Castiel picks him up in the bridal carry again, and holds his weight against his own body.  

He tries to lay Dean down on their bed, but Dean does not let go.  He keeps his face pressed into Castiel’s neck, tight.  “Cas,” he says brokenly, his heart still aching.  “Don’t let go.”  

“I don’t understand, Dean,” Castiel says, though he does as Dean asks and allows himself to be pulled down, chest against Dean’s, elbows to the side of Dean’s head, straddling his body, looking down at him.  “Why are you hurting, now?”   _ You were comforted, and then you were burning, and you wanted me… And then you were so sad.  Did you think I didn't want you, too?  Did you think there was anything, that I would not want, from you?   _ He takes one of Dean’s hands in his own, so he can kiss the fingertips.

“You can’t just  _ love  _ me like that, Cas,” Dean says,voice choked.  “So sure… Promising me… After what I did… after those cultists died… after it was my fault and there are probably going to be more and I could stop them but I won’t because I’m too selfish and I can’t release you from our bond.  Can’t let you go.  You just  _ can’t _ .”  

_ I don’t deserve it. _

_ “ _ Don't you see this?”  He holds up the arm with the Mark.  “Don't you know what it does, what it is?  What it means?  And now, with all these idiots worshiping it, bleeding on me, for me… It's just gonna get worse.  Real bad.  Real fast.”  he turns his head away, and whispers.  “I'm gonna ruin you. And I know it and I still need you so much I can't let go.”

Castiel keeps kissing Dean’s fingertips, placing the first hand he kissed down by Dean’s head on his pillow, taking the other hand.  “Oh Dean.  Oh Dean, my hero, my king.  Oh, my heart.  I love you.  I want to keep you.  The worse it gets, the more I will need to comfort you.  Let me.  Please, Dean, let me.”  

“Cas, I--”

Castiel replaces Dean’s second hand, on the other side of his head, and sits back on his heels.  “Sekhmet told me.  I can give you my name.  Then, I hope, you’ll be able to  _ feel  _ it.  You’ll  _ know _ .  You won’t be able to disbelieve me, then.  You won’t be able to be afraid.  Because you’ll feel the love that I have for you, that shines in my heart all the time, always, you’ll feel it inside you, too.  You’ll feel that it’s never dim, it’s only ever bright.  You’ll feel it spark when I look at you and you are so beautiful, and it lights me on fire.”  He leans forward again, and lines up Dean’s body with his own. “You’ll feel it like melted gold, everywhere we touch.”  He thrusts down, just a little, and Dean gasps.  “You’ll feel like you can’t possibly contain it, like it’s too good and it’s too much and it’s too real.  But you’ll know that you can’t live without it.  You’ll know that if it were taken away from you, your brother would have to put you in a cage.  Because I could not do that for you, then, because I’d be broken too.  But there would be no where else for you to go, because you wouldn’t be able to stop howling its loss.  Not ever.”

Castiel brushes stray hair back from Dean’s forehead, and whispers.  “That’s what you’ll feel.  Forever.”  

And dammit, but Dean is crying again.  Beautiful luminiscent tears, streaming down from wide open eyes.  And damn it to the eternal fires, because his heart is even sorer now.  Castiel didn’t help him.  Castiel didn’t help him at all.  

“I’m sorry Dean.  I thought you would want to know.  I still don’t understand.”  Tears form up in Castiel’s eyes, too.

But Dean bites his lip, and shakes his head so hard that tears fly away, little salty drops that fall silent on his pillow.  “I’m afraid, Cas.  That you don’t mean it, or I don’t deserve it, or something will come and take you away.  I’m sorry, I believe you, I want to believe you, but I’m too afraid.  That’s why it still hurts.”

Castiel kisses Dean's cheek, his temple.  “What can I do.  What can I give you.  How do I help you.”

“Told you.  All I want.  Just be with me.  Please.  Just… touch me, OK?  Just don’t let go.”  

Castiel understands this.  His words about what he feels, about the future, these are intangible to Dean no matter how deeply and sincerely sworn.  They are unknowable.  But here, now, Castiel’s body on Dean’s body, Dean can feel that.  Dean can trust it; it is under is hands, it is against his skin.  

He accepts Dean’s charge like a solider.  He nods somberly, heavily.  He tightens his jaw.  This is as serious as when he was sent into the Pit.  He blinks his eyes and lets his tears drop down onto Dean’s chest.  “I won’t let go.”

 

*****

Castiel wraps Dean in his arms.  He looks down at Dean, and Dean’s eyes are closed, and tear tracks still trace down his face, and his fingers are curled up and small at the side of his head.

Castiel kisses the tear tracks away, first.  They are salty, but not like Dean’s sweat.  They taste like sorrow, and he kisses Dean’s face until he cannot taste that taste there any more.  

Then he kisses Dean’s neck.  He loves Dean’s neck.  It is so soft, vulnerable, and it tastes like him, like Dean, like flannel and leather and Old Spice.  He loves the taste of Dean’s cock, too, but that is a different Dean.  That is a Dean that makes him want to drop to his knees while his eyes roll back in his head.  A lot of people know that Dean.  A lot of them have dropped to their knees and come for him.  But that isn’t  _ this _ Dean, this one that no one else gets to taste but Castiel.  This one that no one else has ever tasted.  This Dean is only Castiel’s.  This Dean is so much smaller, quieter, sweeter.  This is Dean who was tow-headed and small and didn’t know that there was anything bad in the world until his mother died.  This Dean doesn’t know how to smirk or posture or hustle pool.  His fingers are curled up sweetly by his ears, and he if opened his eyes they would be so green and gold that it would be impossible to imagine black there.  

“Love your neck,” Castiel says, as he tastes, and kisses, and sucks.  “Tastes so good.  Tastes like you.”  

“Cas,” Dean whispers, barely a breath.  He is a  _ monster _ and Castiel is an  _ angel  _ and he is so, so afraid.  “Don't let go.”

“No Dean.  Never.”  Castiel sucks at Dean’s Adam’s apple like it is the sweetest toffee.  He sucks the skin into his mouth until it bruises, and the ring of his teeth digs in and makes small red marks from the pressure.  The marks heal right away but he does it again, and again, and again.  He imagines himself coming there, on Dean’s throat, his collarbone, up onto Dean’s chin, dripping from Dean’s lower lip.  He imagines himself lapping his come up, tasting himself mixed with Dean, lapping it into Dean’s mouth and kissing him so that Dean can taste them, too.  

He groans, and his hips thrust up against Dean, again, uncontrollable. “Want you.”

“Cas,” Dean says again, and this time it is a groan.  Castiel starts to pull back from Dean’s body, only an inch, to take his pants off and free his cock, but Dean’s arms spring down from where they rest on the bed, and wrap around Castiel’s waist.  “No.  Don’t let go.”  

So Castiel makes his pants disappear, and in an instant he and Dean are naked, and pressed against each other from chest to knees, cocks hot and swollen, Cas’ sliding wet in the crease of Dean’s thigh, Dean’s caught up between their abdomens.  

They both groan now, together, one deep, lusty sound, and Castiel grinds down hard and slow against Dean.  His pace is immortal, and powerful-- they have time, they can last forever.  They can hold on to each other so tight that they bruise and break and heal and break again.  They can fuck like mountains.  Hard, slow, like ages.

And “Cas,” Dean breathes over and over, every time Castiel moves forward against him, out of breath, feeling like this is his God above him and not remembering all the times when it was. And he is burning up, he's water that's boiling and stone that has turned to lava and air that is too hot to breathe.  The Mark is making his blood sear under his skin and Castiel's body is like the plane of fire on top of him.  “Cas, Cas.”

_ That is the name I will to give you.  The next time my arms are not holding you.  I will give it to you forever.  You will see.  You will see.   _ Castiel wants that, so much, he wants that closeness permanent and shining on Dean's skin and he wants to bury himself in the beautiful body beneath him and he wants to hear his name on Dean's mouth again and again and again and he wants to make Dean come and then hold him, sweating and tired, and then have him again and he wants to know what Dean imagined when the bond spiked with desire, and then shame.  He wants to know what it was, and give it to Dean, so Dean can know there is no shame between them.  It doesn’t matter, whatever it was, he will give it to him, he will give it to him, he will give all of himself, to him.    

There is  _ so much  _ he wants.  He puts that want into the long, hard strokes he makes against Dean's body.

“Feel so good, Cas.  Don’t stop.  Don't let go.”

Castiel growls, and bites Dean's earlobe, and wraps him up tighter in his embrace.  

They slide against each other, hard and sweaty and pressed together so tight.  “Cas,” Dean still breathes on every breath, through the slow ages that pass by as Castiel holds him, moves against him. Makes him rise, and rise, and rise.  Airy and choked out, he says it over and over: “Cas, Cas,”

Castiel doesn't ever stop kissing him, wet and sloppy on his neck, though his lips go loose and numb.   “Can you feel it?”  He pleads, into Dean's ear.  “Can you feel how bright, everywhere we touch?”  his voice is crazed, stone ground.  “Golden?”

“Feel it,” Dean breathes, and he does, what they are doing now is so much, so close, so full of want and need that it is almost like it was when Dean put his hand into Castiel’s body on the cliff’s edge.  Just out of his line of sight, just on the corners of his vision, little stars.  “Not golden.  Sparkly.  Little stars.  Shining.  For me.”  

“Just for you.  My sun.”  Cas agrees, and comes.

“Just for me.  My stars.”  Dean whispers, into Castiel’s bicep where he is still held up, straining into the last of his orgasm.  “Just for me,” and comes too, like avalanche on the mountain, powerful, roaring noise and white and static and too much to control.  

“My stars.  My angel,” he mumbles, as Castiel collapses against him.

“My sun, my hero,” Castiel mumbles back, as they both fall down into the sleep under the drifted snow on the mountain.  Blackness, closeness, silence.  

 

*****

_ Angel.  Everything.   _

Dean's eyes open and there is Castiel, asleep beside him.  Eyes closed sweetly with long dark lashes.  Little breaths huffing in and out of his parted mouth.  Hair puffed up on his head like a bird’s nest.

He's sparkling.  The light around him is cooler, softer, than the torchlight of Hell that normally lights their room.  This shimmer of Dean's Name on his neck pulses with his heartbeat. His stars twinkle around him.  

Dean's heart aches.   _ I love him so much.  So much. _

Dean feels like summer honey is being poured into him.  His body covered with warm and sweet and slow.  It covers him and warms him even where he aches.  Especially there.

He smells roses, on his skin.  Their scent there reminds him if a lightning strike.

He holds his breath, so he will not disturb this moment.  Time will flow by and soon it will be over, too soon, but Dean will not be the cause of its ending.  His legs are tangled together with Castiel’s, and Dean wants to move  _ closer, closer,  _ but he doesn't dare.  He stays completely still and he watches, and his heart unfolds like a flower.  His heart used to be encased, in an iron maiden that hurt it and hid it from view.  But not any more.  

Roses.  Peonies.  Daffodils.

Castiel  _ sparkles,  _ he  _ shines.   _ Dean knows Castiel is Fallen.  Dean knows that Castiel only shines for him, now.  He doesn't understand why.  He doesn't understand how he hasn't turned Castiel to ash.  To splinters and ruin, like what he left in the cache.  But there is no denying it.  Castiel  _ shines. _

_ “ _ Love you,” Dean whispers, to Castiel's sleeping form.

Castiel doesn’t wake, but he  _ feels it _ .  He feels the love pulsing in Dean’s heart like warm water.  He feels Dean’s  _ longing _ .  Longing for him.  He always does.  He always has.  But, now, when Dean’s longing calls to him, he doesn’t resist it.  He doesn’t have to, any more.  He feels Dean’s longing and he moves closer.  He tangles his legs up in Dean’s tighter, and he reaches out for Dean, pulls him in closer, moves his head from his pillow to Dean’s shoulder.  He clutches on to Dean, like a little starfish clutching at the shore.  

“Love you,” Dean whispers again into Castiel’s hair, because he is brave.  Castiel exhales a heavy puff, and holds him tighter.  His chest rumbles, against Dean’s.  

“Dean,” he calls out, in his sleep, nuzzling his face against Dean’s chest.  “Dean.”

Dean holds Castiel to his chest, and mouths at his hair.  It’s soft, and it smells like sweet rain.  

Time will pass, and this moment will end, but Dean will not be the cause of it.  

_ Angel.  Everything _ .  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING for Dean self-harm in this chapter. 
> 
> The Ishkar story in this chapter is one of my favorite things I have written for this fic (or maybe ever?). I really love it.
> 
> This is the longest chapter in the entire fic, I think. It took a long time to write because I was traveling a lot for work these last couple of months, but I wanted to finish it before Thanksgiving and I made it by 2 hours woop! Happy Turkey day to you all *MWAH* <3 <3 <3
> 
> On Tumblr, I am brainheartpizza (https://www.tumblr.com/blog/brainheartpizza). I post unedited excerpts between AO3 updates!


	17. Blackbird Fly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Does the stone of the Pit quake, down deep, all the way to the center of the Earth? Does blood drip and smoke in a fire? Whose blood, and whose hand does it drip from? What is called forth, by that blood, or might be? What is the shape that the universe is becoming? What is worshiped there, now? What names are called in what rituals? 
> 
> Dean, Master, Angel, Castiel.

Chapter 17:  Blackbird Fly  
  
_blackbird sing in the dead of night_  
_take these broken wings and learn to fly_  
_all your life_  
_you were only waiting for this moment to arrive_  
\--The Beatles, Blackbird  
  
\---Past---  
_After Dean's rescue from the Men of Letters bunker by the archangel Castiel_  
  


Castiel was the lightning, all night long.

In the Pit, and in dreams.

His wings were black shadows that flickered with each strike.  The muscles of his shoulders flexed to hold them back, where they loomed heavy over Dean.  His mouth tasted like copper, and blood.  His eyes were ice floes that were too cold to ever be melted, and still, they sparked.  He rained down on Dean's body like the storm that flooded the Earth.  

Sleeping, waking, Dean didn't know.  He broke from one wave of sensation to the next, always almost drowning, always trying to just hold on.  Just hold on to Cas, though he was too hot, too electric, and it seemed impossible.  Just hold on, because they had been parted; he had broken his oath, and his blood had burned him and Castiel had been cold, so cold, and Castiel had cut open his wrist and given up his soul to get Dean back again and now Dean was never, never, going to let go again.  

It exhausted him.  Like trying to hold on to the air that spins at the center of a tornado.  It exhilarated him.  Like standing next to a weathervane when the clouds roll in, dark on the horizon.

Did he dream of Cas, and call out for him, in his sleep?

Did Castiel hear him, and pull his hips back, and fuck him again?  Clashes of body against body, slaps of skin on skin, hands combing everywhere, heads pulled back to bare throats, lips bitten, growls, and grunts, and whines, and cries.  Screams. Tumbling through air cool over hot bodies, lost to the storm.

Dean came, and came, and came, again, and again, and again, even when he was empty, dry, insensate, crying.  Castiel just  _ touched  _ him, just knew how, touched with devastation, and turned Dean's body on like a current across coils of hot copper filament.  Dean screamed.  He begged.  He scraped long claw marks on Castiel's shoulder blades, marks that bled.  

But he did  _ not  _ let go.  Not even for one second.  No matter how wrung dry and wasted his body.  He did not let go.  He might have cried it, “Cas.  Not lettin you go.  Not gonna.  No,”  in anguish when he was nearly too weak to hang on.  He would have wrapped his arms around Castiel's shoulders, his legs around Castiel’s back, though his grip was feeble and Castiel strong as the winds that blow all around the Earth.  Cas would have gathered him closer, covered him with his body, purred in his ear, and fucked him like it was the end of the world.

 

*****

Castiel is the silver God, again. 

Dean doesn't remember.  Castiel doesn't remember.

Castiel is the silver God, for the first time.  

 

*****

 

All night.  It  _ was _ end of the world.  Every time Castiel touched Dean it was the touch that destroyed; the silver God knows no other.  The apocalypse, not waged between Michael and Lucifer on Earth.  Waged between Castiel's hands and Dean's skin.  The destruction not spread over an entire population but personal, singular, in Dean's mind, bright and bright and blinding and then too much, too much light, too much heat, too much feeling, and then only a senseless black.

Black of absolute surrender, to the silver God.  Absolute exhaustion, from the call to his worship.

Dean all given over to the silver God.

But still held in Castiel's arms.  

And in the morning, when the black faded away:  a dream of Castiel.  Holding Dean, on top of him.  One hand large and possessive over his throat, his jaw.  Kissing his shoulder with careful, warm lips.  Sucking at the soft skin of his neck.

In the morning, waking.  The smell of sex and sweet water.  Breathing it in deep.  Opening his eyes to the world, Castiel still holding him.  Still kissing him. The same soft lips, still under his jaw, on his neck.  An easy transition, from asleep to awake.  Miraculously, the same, beautiful, scene.  Almost hard to believe, that it is real, that he has not slipped from one dream to the next.  But when he moves, just an arm to wrap better around Castiel, he is sore enough to believe that it  _ is _ real, this is not another dream, beautiful as it may be.  Castiel is kissing him and holding him and his body is sore and that means it's  _ real. _

He stretches to feel the soreness.  He feels  _ right _ .  This is right.  He was with Cas.  He loved him.  He screamed his name.  And he  _ stayed _ .  His blood isn't boiling, grim in his broken promise.  His heart isn't sore, with longing.  The Mark isn't clawing at his brain and turning his vision red and screeching at him to kill.  Because he  _ stayed.   _ With Castiel.  The bond is satisfied.  His heart is round and pink and beating softly.  The Mark is lost in a diffuse cloud.  

He stayed.  

He wants to always stay.  

“Cas,” He says, with half open eyes, voice raw from screaming all night against the hurricane wind.  He touches Castiel’s face with the palm of his hand.  Castiel is so easy to touch, now.  Not soaring, not hard, just here.  Just warm. So close, so soft.  He is covering Dean, as if trying to make sure that he cannot disappear.  As if the weight of his body can dispel what magic might try to summon Dean again, and take him away.  Graceless, shielding Dean with his own body, from all the danger in the world.   _ Angel.   _

His hair is wild from Dean's hands.  His eyes are liquid sapphire.  He looks like he hasn't slept, has only held Dean and watched over him, all night-- Dean can tell.  He knows what Castiel looks like in the morning, when he has been watching him sleep.  He has only seen it a few times but it clutched his heart every one.  Rumpled and bleary and  _ satisfied.   _ That he protected Dean for a whole night, that for a whole night under his watch no harm came to his charge.  _ Angel _ .

Dean smiles, and brushes his thumb over Castiel's cheekbone.  He rubs the sand in his own eyes with the back of his other hand.  “Y’re watchin’ ov’r me,” He mumbles.

Castiel arches his neck and kisses Dean's mouth.  He has to:  it smiles at him and mumbles so sweet.  “Yes, Dean.  Always.”  He cocks his head.  “How are you feeling?”  So serious, in his care of Dean.

A dopey smile sticks to Dean’s face.  “Good.”  The smile becomes smug.  “Wet.  Sore.”  He shifts his hips, under Castiel.  

Castiel smiles back, but only for a moment, before his expression becomes serious again and he takes Dean’s face in one hand.  “I never want to hurt you, Dean.”  

Dean blushes and ducks.  “I know Cas.  I.  I just feel good.  Full stop.  You took care of me.”  He turns his head, into Castiel’s palm, kisses it, holds it to his lips with one of his own hands.  “You took real good care of me, Cas.  Felt so good.  Wanted that for so long.”  He whispers:  “the lightning.”  It flashes in his mind.  Cracks thunder.

“I… wanted it as well, Dean.  You… You have no idea, how profound an experience it was, for me to make love to you.  To be that, for you, so strong and sure.  To have your body...like that _.”   _ Dean blushes harder. __ “Thank you.  For letting me show you what I wanted.  For… letting me take care of you.”   _ For letting me love you. _ _ For everything. _

“‘Course, Cas,” Dean mumbles, though he doesn't understand why Castiel is thanking him,  Castiel is the one who came to his rescue with a fiery sword.  Castiel is the one that saved him from the burning of his oath breaking.  Castiel is the one whose hands crackled and brought Dean the perfect devastation.

He holds Castiel’s eyes for a long moment, trying to understand.   _ We made love?  Is that what we did?  Have I ever done that before?  I never expected it to feel like that.   _ He blushes.   _ Though _ .   _ Yeah, I guess.  Yeah.  With Cas… Yeah. _

He doesn't see answers, in Castiel’s eyes.  He sees pools so deep they have the beginning of time at their bottoms.  He sees the feeling he fears to name there, just as deep.  Unhidden, unconcealed.  Shown to Dean, unafraid.   __

So beautiful.  So brave.

Dean is not as brave.  Those eyes have been filled with so much that Dean wanted, but would not give himself, for so long.  So, so long.  Even when he saw that nameless feeling there, clear, defiant. So many years, when he only imagined the lightning.  So many years when he was afraid.  So many sad years.

But the sad years are over now.  Dean drops his gaze.   “Want you, again, Cas.  Wanna be yours, again.”  He plays his fingers, in Castiel’s hand.  His lashes are long over his downcast eyes, and his voice is quiet and shy.   _ Please.  I hope… I want… Please. _

Castiel’s heart jumps in his chest.  Because it was not only once.  Because Dean wants him again, like that.  Dean.  His hero.  His king.  Wants him like that, again.  

The want is unbearable.

He shivers.  Looks Dean over, eyes, mouth, hands, throat, chest.  “You’re always mine, Dean.”  His eyes are so sincere.  He says it carefully and slowly.

“Cas--”  _ That’s not what I meant.  You know that’s not what I meant.   _

“And I’m going to take care of you again now, because you are mine and you are precious and I want you to be safe.  So I will treasure you, as you should be treasured; I will protect you, as you should be protected.”

“Cas--”  Castiel puts a finger on Dean's lips.

“I will protect you from being taken away from me, and my guard.  What happened with Sam can never happen again.  You can not be taken where I can't touch you.  You can  _ not  _ be taken where I can't guard you.  _ Never again,  _ Dean, do you understand?   _ I do not allow it.   _ So I will protect you, from being called against your will.  Your name will only be air, and ash, in the mouth of anyone that would call you away, from me.   _ Never again. _ ”

“Never,” Dean whispers.   _ Just in this bed with you forever, if you want it.  Just, to stay _ **.** _ I promise, Cas, I do, I know I fucked it up before but now you're going to help me, and I'm going to stay, I promise.   _ But he only says, ‘Never.’

“I should have done this already.  I should have done this the moment we returned, from the stars.  I should have done this before I even took you there.  Sam could be… He could have… Or Crowley...”  He looks regretful, and then not.  “But I had to get you away, from that place, that was hurting you.  I had to see you, safe.  I had to heal your hurts. I had to... there was so much… that I… wanted.”

Dean opens his mouth, and Castiel takes his finger away.  “I wanted too, Cas.  ‘S a two way street.”  Dean's lips feel swollen, beestung where Cas touched him,  his pulse beating hard through them, remembering.  He reaches up two fingers, and traces them down Cas’ throat.  “Still do.  Told you.  Want you again.”  It's just so warm, pressed between Castiel and the bed.  Castiel's body just fits against his so well.  Smells so good.  He tilts his hips up, just a little, into Castiel.  He just wants...

Castiel layers his own hand on top of Dean's, laces their fingers together, moves them to his shoulder where he holds them.  “Want you too, Dean,” He doesn't pretend not to understand Dean this time, and his voice cracks before he shakes his head.  “But I have to protect you, now.  I've been selfish enough.  Now I have to make you safe.  Just as when you couldn't be with me, until my soul was back.”

Castiel hesitates for a moment, then, remembering that  _ No _ .  Remembering that it can be  _ no _ , even when it feels so much like  _ yes.  “ _ I'll protect you now, ward you…”  He makes sure his eyes find Dean's.  “If you still want that.”

“Want it, Cas.  Want you.  Don't wanna go where you can't touch me.  Always want you watchin’ over me.”

Castiel nods _. _  “This is where I’ll ward you, then,” he repeats his promise from the night before, this time fiercely, protective, aggressive, jealous of calls of Dean’s name that haven’t even happened yet.  Jealous of those times it was called in the past.  Jealous of the mouths that called it.  Even if they called it in pain.  Even if it was the last word they called before death.  Even if Dean was the one that gave death to them.  

He stares at Dean’s skin as he traces the path he will mark, over and over, smoothing the skin from behind Dean's ear to his collarbone.  He gets lost in the texture of that skin.  He gets lost in remembering that he could  _ devastate.  _  It flickers in his fingers, that touch, so easy to release, so ready, boiling there from the heat of the unbearable want.

But, no, now is not the time for that.  There will be a time.  Dean wants him, again, he said it.  There will be a time.  There will be forever.  The sooner this warding is finished, the sooner that time will come.  Castiel will be able to touch then, however he wants.

He almost hears grace, singing inside him.  Or something like it.  Joyful.  Powerful.  Glad to be alive.  It calls on him, to turn his eyes to the Master.  To serve him, and live.

He does not resist this call; it is the same as the call of his heart.  He looks up at Dean’s face again.  “This is where I'll ward you if you want it.”  He whispers, half to himself, a reminder.  “Only if you want, it.  Only if you want me to protect you, that way.”  _ Only if it's yes.    _

Dean nods, weakly.  

“Say it, Dean.  This will be forever.  Say it.”

“Yes, Cas.  Castiel.  Yes.  Forever.  Do it.”  

Does the stone of the Pit quake, down deep, all the way to the center of the Earth? Does blood drip and smoke in a fire?  Whose blood, and whose hand does it drip from?  What is called forth, by that blood, or might be?  What is the shape that the universe is becoming?  What is worshiped there, now?  What names are called in what rituals?   _ Dean, Master, Angel, Castiel. _

It doesn't matter.  Less than if a draft had blown out a candle.  Less than if a speck of dust had flickered in the torchlight.  It doesn't matter at all, this portent of blood and fire.

Not to Dean.  He bites Castiel's lower lip, pulls Castiel’s mouth open, shoves in his tongue, wrecks Castiel’s hair with wild pulls of his free hand.  Pulls back from the kiss  with blood on his lip, and growls, “Do it.”

Not to Castiel.  The choir inside him screams.  His eyes flash.  His head dips towards Dean's face even after Dean has pulled his mouth away.  He is drawn by the gravity, the heat of the kiss, not imagining that it could be so quickly over, because the want, the  _ want... _ until he realizes that Dean is not kissing him anymore.

Dean has given him a command, and it is glorious.  Dean wants what Castiel wants to give him. Wards, and then his body.  Again.  Like the lightning.

Castiel acts immediately.  “Yes, Master.  It will be done.”  He jack-knifes off the bed, moves to their closet.  A closet that is more like a storage room, really, since either of them can manifest whatever clothing they want, at will, these days-- as they did with their robes, white and black, gold and ruby, in the stars.  

But in the closet:  Castiel’s trenchcoat.  Hanging on a wire hanger, looking as downtrodden and exhausted as it used to when Castiel wore it.  

And in Castiel’s trenchcoat, sown into a seam, a long, copper needle.  About the length of Castiel’s forearm, wide as a pencil, except at its point, where it is microscopically sharp.  He slides it from its hiding place, and returns to the bed.

Dean’s eyes focus on the needle, narrow, brow furrowed.  “Whatcha got there, Cas?”

“A needle.”

“I can see that, Cas.  Where'd you get it?  What’re you going to do with it?  Does it have some kind of mojo?  Give me some details, here, buddy.”  

Castiel crawls back up on their bed, and, on his knees, presents the needle to Dean, two handed, held out on his palms, to examine.  “This is what I will use to ward you.”

“Woah, there, Pepe Le Poke.  No way.” Dean shakes his head.  “That’s gonna take forever.  You’d have to jab me with that thing like a million times.  Not happening.  We can go to one of Crowley’s joints, he’s got a bunch of demons with tattoo places that will only give you a mild case of hepatitis.  You can make them disinfect the gun first, not that hepatitis would do anything to me; but I wanna see you narrow-eye-- yes, exactly like that, exactly like what you are doing to me, right now-- some poor tattoo demon while he swipes his tattoo gun with alcohol.”   _ There’s that one demon, that one guy with the crocodile scales, oh man, if Cas looked at him like that, and his crocodile face, oh man... _

“Disregarding the fact that, under no circumstances, would I let one of Crowley’s…  _ scum _ touch you with signs this powerful, you are not listening Dean, you did not even wait for me to finish answering your questions.”  

“Ok, Cas.  Shoot.”

“You asked ‘ _Where did you get it?  What are you going to do with it?  Does it have some kind of mojo?_ ’ You heard the answer to ‘What are you going to do with it?’ but not the other two questions.  Do you _want_ to know the answers, Dean?”

“Well yeah, I suppose so, Cas.”  Dean leans back, and crosses his arms.   _ Oh boy, here we go. _

“Yes, it does have ‘some kind of mojo.’  This is an enchanted needle.”

_ Enchanted needle.  Oh boy, here we go. _

I ‘poke--’”

_ Second use of air-quotes already in this explanation, oh boy. _

“--myself with it,  _ once,  _ and it drinks my blood.

Dean mentally high five himself.   _ Blood drinking, yes, check. _

Actually, as it would appear, Dean's feeling pretty fucking chipper right now.  Not a mystery why, probably has something to do with the fact that he just got the fuck that he has been waiting for for a goddamned  _ decade _ and it was  _ worth the wait _ .  Just got the fuck of a  _ lifetime _ .  From a literal  _ angel _ .  With the cock of a fucking devil horse.  Yeah.  That’s a good way to get into a good mood, that’s for sure.  He feels himself getting just a little bit aroused, again.  Castiel’s cock…  

Castiel pokes him (for the first time) with the needle.  He must have been drifting away.  “ _ Listen _ , Dean.”

Dean assembles his face into an attentive pose.   _ But Castiel’s  _ **_cock_ ** his id whines.  It’s going to be hard to get it to shut up about that, now.  Now that it  _ knows. _  Hard.  Heh.  He shifts against the bed.  His attentive pose struggles against a smug grin, probably loses.

Castiel is continuing his explanation, regardless of Dean's more or less appropriate facial expressions.  Whether by just doesn't notice them, or notices them but ignores them, is not immediately evident to Dean.  He tries to try harder, to pay attention.  Harder.  Heh.  It is a losing battle.

“...Then, when I tattoo you with it, it uses my blood as the ink.  And I don’t have to ‘poke’ you a million times.  

_ Three air quotes! _

“I just draw on you, with it.  Like I was drawing in blood with my finger--

_ Right, blood finger painting, naturally, of course. _

“--and it becomes permanent.  Permanent, in the shape I drew, in my blood.”

_ Hooooooo boy.   _ “That’s a pretty slick trick there, Cas.  Doesn’t seem like something your brothers upstairs would have come up with.  Too useful.  Not dick-ish or torture-ish enough.  So I guess that brings us to the last question.  Where’d you get it?”

Now Cas pauses.  Thinking about how to explain.  “One of the Egyptian… deities gave it to me.  After the plague of locusts.”

_ It just keeps getting better and better!   _

“Why, did they see you trying to peel someone’s skin off because they didn’t have pig’s blood or whatever shit on the door and they thought applause was beneath them so they gave you a blood fingerpainting tattoo needle instead?  That’s what they like you know, peeling people’s skin off.  Such as  _ mine _ , in case you have forgotten.”  

A thought strikes Dean.  “And what the fuck were you even doing on Earth during the plagues, Cas, wasn’t that Azrael’s deal?”

Pause.  Castiel doesn’t answer.  A horrified expression dawns on Dean's face.  

“Cas.   _ Cas _ .  Is  _ that _ when they painted you?  Is there a painting of you somewhere, where you’re armored up and covered with blood and there’s a halo of frogs or whatever the fuck around your head?”

Castiel does not know how to respond to these questions. There are some paintings of him during the plague, yes; those are perplexingly (to him) a popular subject, and yes, there is a lot of… carnage in them.  He’d just as soon Dean not see  _ those _ .  The one of him at Gomorrah… And that didn't even happen, like that, he wasn't even  _ there,  _ that was  _ Zachariah,  _ Castiel has  _ always  _ been utterly indifferent to sexual orientation and how could anyone, even a pre-enlightenment person with no corrective lenses,  _ possibly  _ mistake him for Zachariah (Gabriel says there was no  _ mistake  _ involved at all, and that even a half-blind pre-enlightenment person would rather paint Castiel than Zachariah, even if, yes, Cas, that's blasphemous)?  And…And...

And, regardless, his best analysis of Dean's outburst about the plagues, anyway, is that it is just a diversion, not an intentional one, just a diversion of Dean’s attention onto something he finds more interesting, or less upsetting, than the memory of Isis and Osiris trying to peel his skin off.  That is not a fond memory for Dean, Castiel has discerned.  He decides to ignore the diversion, and answer the questions that are actually germane to Dean receiving his protective tattoos as soon as possible.  He will not divulge that it was Isis and Osiris’ sister that gave him the needle.  He will avoid additional diversions.  He  _ will  _ make Dean safe from summoning.  Immediately.

“The Goddess… the  _ Lionness _ … admired the way I fought during the plagues.  I lost my blade, several times, but I…  _ persisted _ .  She… Was pleased by this, and wanted to give me a token of her admiration.  But she said she didn’t want to give me one of her knives, though they were greatly sought after in that time, because with one of those I’d be too dangerous.  She thought it might make me a God killer.  And she was a God, so that was all that she had to fear.  She did not want to face me, with one of her own blades.  She said we would have time, for that.  I'm not sure what she meant, but she gave me this, instead.”

_ Fucking Jesus, Cas.  Oh, NBD Dean, I'm just going to blood fingerpaint tattoo you with my second prize from the God killer money match.   _

Cas continues, almost…  _ wistful.   _ “Not a knife, not for killing Gods… But a great token, this before, anyway.  Very valuable.  Though I have not used it since it was given.  Blood magic, as you know, being forbidden to the angels,”

Dean rolls his eyes.   _ I surely fucking do know _ .  He thinks.  And:   _ Since when did you ever care about what was forbidden to the angels _ .

“And whether I cared about that or not,” Castiel says, reading Dean'ss question right off his skeptical face, “There was never anyone worthwhile to use it on.”  He looks hard at Dean, to emphasize this.  “Until you.”

Dean gulps.  “Ok Cas.”   _Very smooth_.  “Yeah.  Yeah, ok.  Great answers.  Good stuff.”  He runs his hands through his hair, a little nervous, still not sure he wants to get _blood_ _painted on_ with this thing, that looks just a liiitttllleee bit skin peely, when they could just pop down to Daytona and see crocodile face and his nice, normal, hepatitis infected tattoo gun.

So he stalls.  “Anything else I need to know? There gonna be a pop quiz on which ones of the Egyptian deities gave you golden backscratchers, and which ones are only indifferent to me and which ones want me dead?”

Cas narrows his eyes, losing patience.  “No, Dean.  We have waited long enough.  We have waited too long.  Sam could be gathering… he could be preparing to summon you again, even now.  Your other enemies, Crowley, Scylla and his collaborators in the Cage… No.  We have waited too long. And the needle is copper, not gold.   And I know you have perfect recollection of the hierarchy of the Egyptian deities; there will be no need for a ‘pop quiz’.”

_ Four air quotes!  And wait, what?  Who's doing what in the Cage?   _

He doesn't get the chance to ask.  Castiel is all business, now.  “I will begin immediately.”  He spins the needle in his hands, easily, and presses the tip to the center of Dean’s sternum.  “You will be mine.  Now.”  

_ Quake. Drip.  Hiss. _

Dean gulps again.  “Ok, Cas.”  Not cocky this time.  Whispered.  Awed.  Wanting.   _ Ready _ .   

Castiel nods.  He spins the needle again, and this time when it stops spinning he’s holding it in his right hand, point touching the index finger of his left.  His eyes do not leave Dean’s as he deliberately presses the point the last millimeter further, and it breaks his skin.  

A single drop of blood wells up on his finger, and is swallowed immediately by the needle.  As soon as Castiel moves the needle away, Dean reaches out and touches his forearm, and heals the small hurt.  It burns.  It smokes, just a thin wisp.  Castiel looks through the smoke, past it, still holding Dean’s eyes.  “Thank you, Dean,”  He says.  His choir wails inside him.  “Master,” He continues, and it quiets to a thrum, a cloud of angry bees.

“‘Course, Cas.”  Dean leans back, and braces his hands behind his head, against the headboard.  “Do it,” he says, and closes his eyes.   

 

*****

It hurts, but it doesn't, like,  _ Dean Winchester _ hurt.  Cas has a light hand, and he is careful of Dean's comfort, but even if he were cramming the needle as deep as he could into Dean's neck, it wouldn't compare to what was done to Dean on the racks.  Or what the Mark did to him when he first took it, before the red mud.  Or what the blood oath did to him, while he was in the dungeon in the bunker, away from Castiel.  Or the time the Hell hounds came for to him.  Or the time he had to watch Castiel wade into the water in his trenchcoat, possessed by the Leviathan. Or… Or…Yeah.

He tries not to think of any of that.  He lets the needle sharpness hold him in the present.

And when he does, it feels good, actually. A bright, fine, line of golden pain on his body, connecting him to Castiel.  Castiel  _ concentrating  _ on him so carefully, on the lines, on his body.  One hand holding the needle, the other holding his skin taut.  Castiel’s smoke voice explaining what he is doing.   _ The hottest fucking tax accountant librarian of all time. _

“This is  _ ba-tet. _  Similar to what I engraved on your ribs but accounting for the fact that you are now partially of the demon.  This prevents the angels from finding you, Master.”

“This is  _ wa-tet.   _ The same, but for demons.  They will not find you either, except when you call them for judgement.  And then they will wish they had not.”

“This is the Sumerian Mother Knot.  This abrogates the power of all the gods that came before, including the Sun and the Moon; the Sky, and the Earth, and the Darkness.”

“This is the Higgs boson.  This is how humans pried open knowledge of the universe that before had been only divine.  This negates the power of all the gods after Sumer.”  

“These are the wings of the Knights of Hell, among whom you are now the first.  These manifest your power over human souls, and dictate that human souls have no power over you.”

“And this,” Castiel brushes his fingers over a spot over Dean's heart, just under his anti possession tattoo.  “This is the sphere of Heaven.  This means that you are favored of one, there.  One of the angels.”  He looks up from his work when he says it, but doesn't raise his gaze to Dean's eyes.  He stares at Dean's lips, instead.  “I don't know if this one will work, anymore.”

“Still want it,”  Dean replies, putting a hand on Castiel's hip, thumbing the bone there.  “Still want it, if it's from you.  If it means I'm yours.”

Castiel takes Dean's jaw with the hand holding the needle, pulls him up for a hard kiss.  Tongue too eager to enter Dean, to appease the stinging choir within him.  “Then you will have it.  You will have my favor, Master, even if it is only a symbol.”  Castiel hangs his head.  “Even if it is not what it once was.”

“Hey,”  Dean grabs Castiel's chin, and pulls his head back up.  “Fuck those guys.  Fuck their fucking brainwash robot power.  I'd rather have  _ you.   _ And a knife.  Than every other angel in all of fucking Heaven _.”   _

Castiel looks at him, sadly, not quite believing.  He was so much more powerful, as an angel, there was so much more he could do, for Dean...

“I killed them all, didn't I?” Dean asks, very softly.  

Castiel nods.  There is no denying that.  Dean killed them all.

Dean nods too.  “That's right, I did.  Fuck those guys.”  He rests his head back, again. “I'd rather have you.”

“You have me Dean,” Castiel says, and a tear drips down his face, onto Dean's chest, as he finishes drawing the sphere of Heaven.  His choir soothes him, with long, dark fingers.  “Always.”  

And when Castiel has finished his tattooing, and put his needle back away in its seam in his trenchcoat, and laved his tongue over every black stroke of Dean's new tattoos, and come on them with a cry, rubbed his semen into the scars, Dean does have him.  Again.  And again.  And again.   

“My angel,” He says, when his hand pulls in Castiel's hair.  “Only mine.  Forever.”

And Castiel cries out, his choir screams out.  “Yes, Dean.  Only yours.  Forever.”

_ Quake.  Drip.  Hiss. _

 

_ ***** _

 

Sam does attempt to summon Dean to the bunker again, not long after Catiel's rescue.  Of course he does. Castiel was right, to move fast, to take preemptive action, to anticipate that Sam would try again.

Sam still does not know, for certain, what is wearing his brother's body.  He does not, cannot, believe that it is only Dean. Whatever it was, it summoned demons (so he believes) to the bunker, 10 demons, ancient ones, that feared him, right for him, helped him escape.  But whatever it was, it also embraced Castiel, and Castiel embraced it back.  Though, a Castiel that Sam barely recognized; a Castiel that was so bright, so full of fury.  More like Michael, or Raphael, than their Cas.  

So much of Dean's visit to the bunker was confusing, to Sam.  So much did not make any sense.  The failed exorcism.  The useless devil's trap.  The angel wards also useless.  Castiel, coming for that black eyed monster inside of Dean, and shining, when he should have been Fallen.  Castiel kneeling, and taking Dean into his arms.  Of his own will, or in thrall to the occupant of Dean's body?

Sam has so many questions.  What is Dean.  What is Castiel.  Does Castiel know what Dean is.  What is their relationship.  Is Castiel free, or enslaved.  Is the answer to any of those first questions dangerous.  If so, how dangerous, and what will Sam have to do to counter the danger?  Is there anything he  _ can  _ do.  Can Dean be saved.  Does Cas need to be saved and if so is it possible. So many questions.

So  _ of course _ he tries to summon Dean again, he has to.  Crowley might deal with him, but he does not relish that option, so there is no other way, to answer his questions.  Cain is dead; Dean killed him.  The angels are dead or too afraid to leave their fortresses in Heaven, no matter who calls; Dean killed too many of them.  There is nothing in any of the books, in the bunker, that can explain black eyes that are not burned by holy water, or angels that shine and embrace them.  

Sam has learned from the first time, though.  So Sam is thoughtful, Sam is careful.  This time he does burn sage, before the summoning, in Dean's room, in the garage.  It makes him sad, to do this, because it means whatever Dean is, he doesn't live in the bunker, anymore.  But it's necessary, so that Dean can't summon demons through the wards to rescue him, this time.

He paints out wards against angels, too.

He prepares the golden bowl.  He prepares the ritual knife.  He prepares the holy water.

He is thorough.  He is careful.  

He has no idea how futile his preparations are.  He will not be able to call Dean; Castiel has given him the wings of the Knights of Hell and no human has any power over Dean, any more.  Dean was not the one that summoned the water demons to the bunker, the burning of sage will ward nothing.  And Castiel, with Raphael’s grace, is an archangel and cannot be bound.

Sam doesn't know any of this.  But he has questions.  And he wants to see his brother.  So he makes the preparations that should be wise.  And he cuts his hand, and recites the ritual, and calls.

 

*****

 

Dean is sitting is his iron backed throne, when Sam calls for the second time.  Yeteriel's head is still piked on its back.  There is a line of demons waiting, in the marble aisle, for Dean to speak to them -- to send them on missions, to bring him gifts (or gifts for the angel), to offer him favors.  

Dean addresses them one by one.  This one wants to fetch some bullshit called Pan's Medallion from some crevice in some volcano in the Aegean.  Dean doesn't give a shit.  “Do what you want, I don't give a shit,” He interrupts the demon, as it recites a list of the Medallion’s powers.  Some shit with goats, who the fuck knows with these fucking demons.  Dean doesn’t need a medallion, he doesn’t need fucking Nereus’ trident or fucking Brigit’s knitting needles or whatever the fuck.  He’s got the only weapon he needs.  He’s got the First Blade, he’s the Father of Murder, and he will use the First Blade to capital M Murder this demon fucker in two seconds if he gets out of line with his new Medallion, but in the meantime an archeological project is far from the worst a demon could get up to.  He gestures him aside, gestures at the next demon to step up.

This one is carrying an emerald the size of a fist.  It’s smoky and impure, shot with gold.  He holds it up.  “For…” he looks down at Castiel, clearly uncomfortable, not knowing how to continue.

Because, Dean is slouched in his throne, ass on the edge, legs spread.  Wearing pants, but unbuttoned, unzipped, his cock free.  And in between his spread knees, kneeling, wrists clasped behind his back, holding Dean’s cock in his mouth but not bobbing or licking or swallowing, is Castiel.

“For my angel?” Dean asks, voice steady as the throne itself.

“To… to… to remind him, of you, Master,” the demon manages.  

Dean holds out his hand.  The demon looks from it, to Dean’s face, to Castiel, to the hand again.  It seems like Dean wants him to approach, but he is wary of approaching this tableau.  More than wary.  

“If you look at him again, I’ll take your eyes,” Dean says, observing the demon’s glances.  “He’s only for me.”  His voice is still steady, but now it is also sharp.  “Bring me the gem.”  

“Y… Y… Yes, Master,” and the demon stumbles forward, almost trips the emerald into Dean’s hand, falls backwards, scuttles away from the throne on feet and ass and elbows, pauses there, waiting for its gift to be evaluated, waiting to be dismissed.  

Castiel’s eyes are closed, so Dean describes the gem to him, turning it in his hands, looking it over.  “Pretty rock here for you, Cas.  Green and gold.  Scum that brought it to us says it’s supposed to remind you of me.  I think it would.  If I ever had to leave you, again.  You could put it on your nighstand.”  He looks up from the gem, at the demon, at this.  “By all the halos.”  

A reminder, as if any of the demons in the line needed it with Yeteriel’s head still spiked there in front of them:  I killed them, the angels of Heaven.  It was easy.  I could kill you too.  I will, if you hurt my angel.  If you look at him too long.  If you call him with words I don’t like.  Capital M.

He puts a hand on Cas’ head, grips his hair, rocks his mouth forward and backward a little.  “But you won’t need that, angel.  Not for a long time, I promise.  Gonna--”

That’s the moment when Sam’s ritual hits him.  He remembers the feeling, from the last time-- it wasn’t so long ago, and his fear burned it into his memory.  A tug in his chest, like he has been hooked, a barb sewn through his soul, pulling.  Sam’s voice, in his head, chanting.  

His blood goes cold.  “Cas,” he pants, frantic.  “Cas, it’s happening again, Sam’s... it’s happening again.  It’s… what do I… Cas,” 

But Castiel is calm.  He pulls off of Dean’s cock calmly, licks his lips.  He doesn’t stand.  He doesn’t unclasp his wrists, from behind his back.  He opens his eyes, but only half lidded.  “Sam can’t take you from me now, Dean,” he says, slowly, like syrup, like Dean’s cock is a drug that has has put him in a trance.  

“But he’s… I feel…”

Castiel picks up the emerald, from where Dean has dropped it on the ground in panic.  He looks at it, turning it over in his hands slowly.  “You are the first of the Knights of Hell,” he says, in that same too calm voice, not even looking up.  “It says so on your body.  It is marked there, in blood.   _ My _ blood.  No human can summon you.”  His voice turns fierce, then, and he raises his eyes to Dean’s.  “I have made it so.”  

Dean shudders.  The hook in his chest tugs again, one more time, two more times… then it is gone, Sam’s voice silent as the ritual ends.

Castiel nods, as if he can tell that the summoning is over.  “So you see, no, I will not need this, to remind me of you, for some time,” Castiel says, and tosses the emerald over his shoulder, towards the line of demons.  He takes Dean’s cock back into his mouth again, instead, and closes his eyes.          

 

*****

_ \---Just before--- _

 

Castiel runs the point of his tongue over Dean's new tattoos until it is numb.   He has been doing this, every morning, every night, since he marked them there.  Dean wonders what they taste like.  Probably like Cas, by now; his tongue, his come. His back arches, when he thinks of that, and Castiel is there, always there, above him.    

The tattoos are on Dean's right side, and today Castiel palms Dean's left nipple with his right hand as he traces each line of ink. His left hand claws in Dean's hair, holding Dean's head back, his throat bare, so that his tongue will be able to follow every mark, all the way up Dean's neck.  His body rides against Dean's, forward and back with the tip of his tongue.  The choir that has been growing inside him chants in a minor key, rising and falling with the rhythm of their bodies.  When Dean arches against him, his teeth bite down on the tendon in Dean's neck.

Dean whimpers.  “Cas.”  He has had Castiel three times already, today, this morning, and his body is so sensitive, now.  The writhe of Castiel against him, it overwhelms him.  “Cas,” He begs.  He doesn't know how Castiel can be ready again, hard again.

It is because of the new power, inside Castiel.  Castiel thinks that if he were cut now, he would not leak electric blue. He thinks he would still leak blood, but maybe also too he would leak with this power, black and smoky.  It is the same color as the magic that swirls around the First Blade, but it does not want him to kill.  It just wants  _ Dean.   _ To see him.  To touch him.  To taste him.  To  _ serve  _ him.  

Castiel knows, the power that comes with the call to service.  The power that comes from obedience, love.  He was an angel of the Lord.  

“Cas,” Dean whines again, and takes Castiel’s hand in his own, away from his nipple.  “‘S too much.”

Castiel stops moving, stops biting.  That is a  _ no.   _ It is too much for the hero, who is so strong.  Too much, even for him. __ He stops, immediately.  But he still  _ wants.   _ Dean is  _ so beautiful,  _ bare, marked, beneath him.  “Let me serve you,” He whispers.  “Master.  Let me serve you.   _ Please _ .”  

Dean slits his eyes open, shades them with his free hand like he is hungover and Cas is the sun.  A glint of green appears beneath the lids, just a sliver.  Emerald and so beautiful.

The not-grace within Castiel reaches out to Dean, just like true-grace used to.  He releases just a trickle of it; though with this grace it is not like a trickle, but like an electric charge, released over a frayed wire.  It contacts Dean’s tattoos and sizzles.

Dean’s eyes open all the way.  His cock hardens again.  His body tenses, out of its laxness.  He sits up, and grabs Castiel’s hair, kisses him like he owns him.  

He does own him.  When he lets go, and Castiel is breathless, he repeats, in a whine.  “Master.  Let me serve you.   _ Please _ .”   

 

\---Present---

 

In Castiel's dream, he is washing Dean again.  They are in a garden, Dean is lain softly in bright green grass.  Castiel is garbed in white and bands of gold, his chest bare, his feet bare.  He has worn this garment before, but he has not.  He has been here before,  _ they  _ have been here before, but they have not.    

He is gently cleaning Dean with rose scented water.  Weaving a crown of flowers to place on his head.  Roses.  Daffodils.  Peonies.  His fingers know the weave-- they have woven this crown before, and they have not.  The flowers grow up all around Dean, they push up from the Earth with every breath he takes.  They reach with their flowers towards Castiel’s hand, hopeful that they will be chosen, to be part of the hero's crown.  They would die for that, to be part of that glory, temporary though it may be.  They hope they will die, that way, on the hero’s brow.

They are in love with him.  Every flower, every blade of grass, even the wind that blows a cool breeze over them.  How could they not be?  He is soft and sweet smelling and he is wearing the negative of Castiel’s garment:  black skirted around his legs, waist and arms banded with ruby.  His eyes are so green, like the leaves of the flowers.  They are smiling, crinkling at the sides.  His lips are pink and they are smiling too.  “Cas,”  the dream Dean says.  “Love you.”  

The entire garden inhales, loves him back.  Castiel most of all.  “I love you too, Dean.  So much,” He says, even though he knows that saying it in the dream doesn't mean true-Dean will hear it.

Castiel has a beaten silver ewer beside him.  He uses it to wash Dean’s face, his hair, his arms, his hands, his fingers, his chest.  It refills itself when he sets it down after every pour.  He pours carefully anyway, like the water is precious, like he is rinsing an ancient artifact that might crumble under the weight of the water.

Dean’s face is so beautiful when it is wet.  Like it is wearing a mask of crystal, shining and smooth and unmarred.  Water dripping from his lashes, his lips, little diamonds.  So tempting, for Castiel to kiss them, tongue the drops into his mouth and taste them.  So beautiful, his king.

He does not resist the temptation.  He lowers his lips to Dean's and touches his tongue to a bead of water that clings there.  

“Mmmmmm” Dean hums, and wraps an arm around Castiel's lower back.

“You taste so sweet, hero,” Castiel says, loving Dean with every word.

“Mmmm,” Dean repeats, and pulls Castiel down to rest his head against his chest.  Perfect.  They could hold each other this way, until the dawn.  They have before, but they have not.

“Like bein’ your hero, Cas.”  

Castiel nods against Dean’s chest.  “Mmmmm” he hums, too.

Then, a pause.  No insects buzz in the Garden.  The only sound the sighing of petals that rise and fall with Dean's breaths.  

Dean's fingers brush Castiel's bare shoulder.  Castiel shivers from the touch, so sensitive, for Dean.

“What does it mean to you, Cas, when you call me that?  ‘Hero’?”  

Another pause.  The sound of breeze in the grass.  Castiel thinks about Dean’s question, before he has an answer.  When he delivers it, each word is slow, precise, like he hasn't completely finished deciding, yet.

“It means… You are the reason I came down from the sky.  You are the one that was so fierce, so bright, that you had to be saved, so I flew.  You are the one that killed Heaven, for me, so I could be saved, when I Fell.”  

He starts to pick up speed. “You are the one, the only one, ever, that was so beautiful, so brave, that I had to have you as mine, my own.  You were a flame, sometimes burning white hot and sometimes suffocated and guttering and sometimes wrapped in black smoke, but always burning out the darkness.  Even when you were afraid.  Even when it was impossible.  There you were, etched in gold, one man, that all the shadows feared, no matter how ancient or how deep.  The hero.”

“And then I fell and it hurt, Dean, it hurt so much but you held me in your arms.  You were being eaten alive by the violence of the Mark, it screamed at you to kill and slice and claw but you held me so gently, to your chest, and you kissed me so softly, and you made it so it wasn't cold, when it was so cold I thought I would never be warm again.  And you made the hurting stop.  It was all the pain in all the worlds in all of time and it was impossible to stop, it was all of Heaven, they were so powerful and so many, and they wanted to hurt me and it was impossible to stop them, it should have been impossible.  But you made it stop.  You made it stop and you held me in your arms and you kissed me so sweetly I thought I would break.  My hero.”

He kisses Dean’s chest just, rotating his head only a degree.  “Hero.”  

Dean moves a hand so that it can thread through Castiel’s hair.  He threads it through with long, thoughtful strokes in the new pause between them.  The slight rasp of his skin on hair is now the only sound.  

“What does it mean to  _ you,  _ Dean?”  Castiel is aware that this is only a dream-Dean, that it is not true-Dean answering but only Dean the way Castiel sees him, wants him to be.  But he still asks.  He still wants to hear the answer, in Dean’s voice, from Dean’s lips, even if it is not a real answer, even if it is only Castiel’s dream speaking through them.

Dean’s hand keeps combing through Castiel’s hair, maybe a little faster now.  

“Means I gotta keep doin’ what’s right.  Even when it sucks.  Which is most of the time.”

“Dean--”

“Means I gotta keep takin’ care of you.  Means I can’t let you get hurt.  Means I fight for you.  No matter what.”

Castiel closes his eyes, and leans his face into Dean’s chest.  A tear drips down his face, onto Dean, and he thinks it might fall there on true-Dean, in their bed, as well.  The tear drips down because he knows this is not how true-Dean would answer him.  He knows that true-Dean would deny that he is a hero at all, that he has only ever done what had to be done and that he did not gleam when he did it but fumed and smoked.  He knows that true-Dean only feels anxiety that Castiel feels also, through the bond, whenever Castiel calls him ‘hero’.  True-Dean does not feel pride, not righteousness, he does not feel that he is the only one that could carry the flag.  He feels only anxiety, every time, that he will not live up to the name.  

That is how Dean-that-has-been would answer, and Castiel lets his tear drop down onto dream-Dean and true-Dean, in sadness for him.

But Castiel has a power.  He has the power to create Dean-that-will-be.  He will create this Dean by giving him his name, tattooing it on his body, over his heart.  Dean-that-will-be will feel the pride, he will feel the righteousness, he will feel the sword of Heaven in his hand.  He will feel what Castiel feels, when he calls him, ‘hero.’  It will come to mean the same, to them, through their bond.  Castiel will create Dean-that-will-be, and open up all his cracks so that the light can shine in.  

Castiel will create this Dean-that-will-be.  He will give him his name.  He will give it forever.  As soon as the dream they have had before, have never had, is ended.   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is setting us up for... things to come. 
> 
> Hope you all can enjoy it, over the winter holidays. <3 
> 
> On Tumblr, I am brainheartpizza (https://www.tumblr.com/blog/brainheartpizza). I post unedited excerpts between AO3 updates!


	18. Fall, Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Never gonna die, invincible, unkillable, and he’s gonna protect me anyway. Gone warn off whoever it is that even thinks about tryin’ to come after me. Gonna keep standing behind me, behind the throne, with his hands crossed behind his back and one of them holding a knife.

Chapter 18:  Fall, Again

 

_ We are not two _   
_ we are one _   
_ \-- _ Strangers, The Kinks

\---Present---

 

“Hero.”

Castiel says this before his eyes open.  He murmurs it, serious, to himself.  Dean is watching his face, holding him close, holding the moment, stroking his hair, so he knows:  Castiel's eyes are still closed, when he says this.  Still in some dream.

“Hero,” He says again when he opens his eyes a moment later, and sees Dean, and softly kisses his lips.  He says it like breath.  He says it with such certainty, such devotion.  It is the hero, that he kisses.  None other.  There can be no mistake.

“Mornin’ Cas,” Dean says, voice sleepy, heart aching for his angel, who greets him this way, so sure, and is so beautiful.  Heart aching for this moment.  He does not untangle their legs,  He does not loosen his hold around Castiel's back.  He will not let this moment go.  It will end, he knows, but he will not be the cause of it.  His hands keep stroking, in Castiel’s hair.  It’s so soft.  Like little chicks, but they do not peck, at Dean.  

Castiel’s eyes are shining, as he touches Dean's face with fingers light and airy like lace, so careful, like he is touching something that has never been seen before, by any angel, on any Earth.  Careful, almost curious.  But he knows this face.

His stars are shimmering in and out of the air around him.  His new-grace is singing as he touches, one high, crystal, note.  A note that will shatter, if it becomes any louder, any sharper.  It will shatter Castiel’s bones, his skin.  It will shatter the walls of the Pit and the pillars that hold up the sky.  It will shatter  _ everything _ .  Everything.  It  _ will.   _ It is just waiting, for its moment.  It is the note that shatters, it has that power.  Just as Castiel has the power to create Dean-that-will-be. Maybe these two powers are linked.  Probably, they are.    

It shrieks and echoes off the longing, in Dean's heart.  The longing for this moment, when they are warm and safe and together, Dean and Castiel, the longing in Dean's heart for a moment that has not even finished, yet.  Longing like a prayer.  

Castiel will answer it.  He will answer it finally, and forever.  He will answer it with himself, given over, written on Dean’s skin in blood.    

He touches his thumb to the corner of Dean’s mouth, and Dean turns his head to roll it over his lips.  Castiel feels duty like a shield on his back in this moment; he turns on a pin.  As much as he did during the siege.  As much as when he Fell.  

He feels the duty of creation, the duty of the Father.  Castiel will create Dean-that-will-be.  He saw a glimpse of this Dean, for a moment, on the cliff’s edge.  He was so strong, and beautiful.  It is Castiel’s duty, to create that beauty again.  Now, Castiel will create that Dean, forever.  Create him and worship him.  Castiel will be on his knees, with the many.  The many others, that will worship Dean.  The demons, yes, of course, and the creatures of Hell; the hellhounds and the balrogs and the night walkers.  Sekhmet in her cave, Hephaestus at his forge.  But the angels, too, if any of them survive.  Castiel will see them bend the knee.  And humans… their cultists, Castiel will not even have to put his gauntleted hand on their shoulders, to push them down.    

But those others will cry, and rend their garments, because they will not get to be close to Dean, to touch him, to feel his voice on their skin.  

But Castiel will not cry.  He will kneel, and he will worship, but he will not cry.  Because he will be the one the only one, who will be close, who will touch, who will feel.      

He brushes the hair back from Dean's forehead and says “I love you.”

His voice, his eyes, his touch, they are all bleeding with love, they are swollen and sore with it.  It knocks Dean over.  It warms him up and fills him with silence.  His eyes question, that this could be real.  His touch clutches what he is afraid to let go.  How can Castiel show himself, like that?  How can he be so brave?

Castiel holds Dean's face, brave warrior, dutiful.  “You'll see,” He says, into Dean's silence, question, fear.   _ Forever _ seeps in black wisps out of his eyes, and his voice echoes with his choir: “You'll know.”  Terrible and beautiful Castiel is, then, like a fall into darkness that never ends.

Dean is ready to fall.  He wants to, to fall into that darkness, forever.  There are so many darknesses, that he could fall into, that have called his name, have claimed him, but he has resisted them, every one.  He will not resist this one.  He will let it wash over him as it pulls him down.  He closes his eyes and feels himself swaying.  It will be so beautiful, as he falls into Castiel.  

He nods against Castiel’s hand, feels his stubble scrape against Castiel's palm.  “S what I want, Cas.”  He finds these words, in his silence; he finds them slow and careful, precious, and serious, like bones in the grave.   “Wanna be right, for you.  Show me how.  Show me what you need.  Give it to me, to keep forever.  Wanna love you like that, baby.  Wanna love you right.”    _ Let me know what you need, so I can give it to you.  Let me keep it, secret, safe.  Only me.  Let me see.  Let me stay. Just wanna stay. _

“You do, Dean.”  A tear is in Castiel’s eye.   _How can he not know how well he loves me, how can he not, how can he think..._  “I'll show you.”  His voice breaks.  That Dean can't feel it, feel what is in Castiel’s heart _,_ shining all around him, shrieking, ready to shatter-- that Dean can _doubt--_ it cannot continue a minute longer.  It _cannot,_ it is wrong, they are one heart, not two.  They will be together when the sun and the moon are dust.  Castiel has to show him.  The day is today.  The time is now.

“Yeah, Cas.  Want that.”  Dean's voice almost breaks.

“Dean.  Hero.  Master.  It will be done.”  

Castiel climbs gently out of Dean's grasp, kissing each contact he removes with slow lips, and retrieves Sekhmet’s needle from its seam in his trenchcoat.   

 

*****

 

“Where?”  Castiel asks.  The tip of Sekhmet's needle hovers over Dean's chest.  “Your heart?”  Castiel gestures, towards the sphere of Heaven, already marked there.

Dean pushes back Castiel's hand, blushes, looks away--

_ For the last time.  The last time he will be able to feel shame, between us. _

_ \-- _ ”I thought… I had an idea, about how you could do it.”

“Yes, Dean.  Anything.”   _ Anything you want.  Anything you need.  Forever.  Always, yes.   _

With his right hand, Dean maneuvers the needle to the first knuckle on the first finger of his left hand.  He taps.  “C”.  

He moves it to his middle finger.  Another tap.  “A”.  

Ring finger.  Tap.  “S.”  

He looks up.  “‘Cas’.  Then I guess you've got the little finger free, you can do whatever you want, a halo or a harp or your backwards 13 or whatever.”

Castiel kisses each of the knuckles Dean has just tapped, and taps the fourth one himself.  “A knife here.  To symbolize my protection.  A  _ warning _ .  Your knight.  Sworn.  Always.”

“Yeah, a knife.  Yeah, OK, Cas.”   _ Never gonna die, invincible, unkillable, and he’s gonna protect me anyway.  Gone warn off whoever it is that even thinks about tryin’ to come after me.  Gonna keep standing behind me, behind the throne, with his hands crossed behind his back and one of them holding a knife.   _

_ And what am I going to do? _

_ Gonna stay.  Gonna love him the best I can.  Just gonna stay.  And he’s gonna show me.  Let me see what he needs.  Gonna give that to me, trust that to me, forever.   _

He agrees again, though Castiel hasn’t spoken, has been smoothing over the skin of Dean’s small finger with his thumb, staring at it, imagining.  “Yeah, Cas.  Yeah.  That’s what I want.  ‘F you want it.  If you’re willing to give it, to me.”      

“Give you everything, Master,” Castiel whispers, picking up Dean’s other hand.  “Anything you want.” He kisses each new knuckle.  “But what about this hand?  I have four more free spaces.  A star?  A sun?  A rose? My heart?”

Dean blushes harder.  “I had… I thought… I know what I want you to put there, too.  If you… If it's OK.”

“It will be done, Master.”  Anything Dean wills, Castiel will see it done.  If it is a tattoo or the death of a world.  His servant, sworn. Forever.

“Love.  L-O-V-E.  Love.  Four fingers.  Four letters.  That's what I want.”

L O V E  C A S ⇞

Affection washes over Castiel, from the crown of his head, slow like honey, warm and soft and expanding in his chest and wrapping around the steel-bound duty, there, seeping into it and making it glow like it was dipped in fire.  Dean’s  _ love _ , sworn.  Forever.

“‘Love Cas,’” He whispers.  Blinded, silenced, by awe.  That Dean thought of this.  That Dean  _ asked  _ for this.  He feels all of his blood, speeding through his body.  Every one of its cells sings the note of his new-grace, every cell ready to shatter, to come apart.  Every cell on the verge.  

“If that's OK.  If…”  

“Dean,” Castiel says, voice still sore with love, but now also hard from want, and desire as deep as the Fall.   _ How can he be so unsure, how can he... _  His stars all pull in to his body as tight as they can go, ready to burst.  His choir screaming and beginning the shatter, beginning it in his heart, ttrying to escape him and give Dean the touch that devastates, all over his body, all at once, so Dean will feel it, will be devastated with him, will  _ shatter _ with him.  He closes his eyes and stills, just trying to contain the shattering.  Trying to keep it inside, so that it does not destroy the Earth.  

It feels like it could.  It feels like...    

“Cas, it's OK,” Dean says, mistaking the rough want in Cas’ voice, the tears in his blind eyes, for disappointment, thinking that what he has asked for is too simple, not enough, one word for everything Cas is to him; thinking that he has belittled, demeaned, insulted.  It's not like the Sumerian Mother Knot, is not like the Sphere of Heaven.  Iit’s just one word, four letters, so little, like  _ nothing.   _ It should have been the Song of Songs, for Cas, it should have been Endymion, it should have been Virgil and the Seven Circles, not this, not this crude, this biker-gang knuckle banging four letter... Tears spring to Dean’s eyes and he tries to take it back, take it back fast enough to make it like it never even happened, that his stupid, thoughtless, words hurt his angel, who was trying to give him  _ everything, _  “You don't --”

Castiel cuts himself with Sekhmet's needle, straight across his wrist, in one fierce, deep, slash.  

Blood spurts free.  Red with black tendrils that smoke and float away.    

Dean's mouth snaps shut, and he reaches out immediately, to heal.  

But Cas forestalls him.  “No.”  His voice is as hard as all the dark ages of man, and all the cold steel forged then.  “No. It's not enough--

_ It's never enough _

\--let it  _ drink _ .”

And he holds Sekhmet's needle to the cut.  It should not be able to hold so much blood: it is thin as the stem of a rose and no longer, and Castiel has cut himself to the bone, but it  _ drinks.   _ Castiel bleeds, and it is  _ thirsty.   _

Castiel starts to pale.  Dean reaches forward to heal him, again, and this time Castiel slaps his hand away with a snarl.  

“It's not  _ enough.   _ It has to be all of me.  All of me, for you _.” _

“But it's  _ never _ enough,” Dean whispers, and watches, fascinated, terrified, as the needle drinks, and drinks.  His hand is gripped around Castiel's wrist, holding it steady, ready to heal the cut, as soon as Castiel will let him.  But not before. Not before Castiel gives it all.  

 

*****

 

In her cave, Sekhmet’s eyes turn gold.  No white, no iris, only a single, gleaming, gold.

She smiles.  

Her snake looks at her, and flickers its tongue.  Wadjet.  Green one.  She pats its head.

She has waited 2000 years of men, for this.

For the angel to find this, do this,  _ become  _ this.  For the universe to  _ bend.   _

_ Fuck you, Yaweh.  This is what you wrought, from the plagues.  This is what I set in motion, then.  This is what I have taken from you-- your favorite child, forever.  Fuck you.   _

She smiles.  

 

*****

 

When he has no blood left, Castiel stops bleeding.  Wisps of dark smoke still curl out from his wrist, but he does not bleed anymore.  Only because he has bled all of his blood, and is empty?  Or because his un-grace has become so powerful, and so loud, has shattered the bones inside him, all the cells, all that was alive, so much that he does not bleed, anymore?  Is he a human body, bled out and dead in Hell, pale and ice cold like a corpse?  Or is he something new, not human, not angel, not blood, not grace, only forbidden magic and a promise of  _ Forever? _

He does not feel cold.

He hears his choir, but it is not the choir of an angel.

He considers, as it sings, as the last drops seep from the cut on his wrist.  What is he?  What has he become?  

Dean does not consider anything but that Castiel’s body is slashed open.  He only heals the cut on Castiel's wrist, and thumbs over the seam, to ease it; he does not ask himself questions about what it might mean.  He only raises the healed wrist to his mouth, and kisses, it, to make sure it is sealed and whole again.  Castiel is Dean’s angel, always, and Dean will heal all his hurts and ease them, always, no matter whether he bleeds red or black or blue or not at all.      

“Now,” He whispers, against Castiel’s skin, skin that was opened and that he has made whole, again.  “Is it gonna be now?”  Such want Castiel hears in his voice, such desperation.  As if:  it has to be now, or I’ll die from wanting.  It has to be now, or I’ll die from sadness.  From isolation.  From the cold.  Let it be now, so I can live.       __

“Yes,” Castiel replies, voice quiet, strong like stone, strong as his  _ duty _ .  “Yes.  Now.” You will not be alone.  You will not be cold.  You will not know sorrow.  You will live.  

Castiel’s hand is steady, so steady, as he raises the needle.  Even his stars lay flat; under his fingernails they are fairy lights, along his veins they are rivers of silver.  They do not even quiver, as he writes in simple block letters on Dean’s right fingers:  L - O - V - E.  

He kisses each letter after he writes.  “‘Love’,” He whispers, head pulled back, holding the hand he has written on, staring at it.  In his gaze is awe, still, that this is what Dean asked for, that this is what Dean planned, that this is real, that he has made this with his blood and that he is holding it in his hand.  

Also satisfaction--  _ yes, this is as it should be.  Yes.   _ Love there where anyone can see it, will see it, if Dean is sitting on the throne or throwing a punch or holding the hilt of the First Blade. __

Also disbelief.  That what he is seeing is real.  That  _ this _ is what Dean asked for, that  _ this _ is what Dean planned, that this is not only a dream and this the hand of a Dean-of-Dreams.  That this is the hand of True-Dean.  About to become Dean-That-Will-Be.   

And Castiel, Dean-That-Will-Be’s shield, knight, servant,  _ love,  _ sworn, Forever.  He draws a knife on the little finger of Dean's left hand; a claim, a warning.  Simple, stylized, one black line creating the contour of a blade, a second creating the shape of a hilt, a third, thin, horizontal, forming the guard.  

Dean hears the sound of steel on steel when Castiel’s lips touch him, there.  

And then, Castiel takes his other hand.

_ C _

Nothing happens.  There is no rumble in the core of the Pit.  The air does not shimmer.  Dean doesn’t know what he expected:  that the world would turn blue, seen through blue eyes?  That cultists would appear, red robed, and sacrifice themselves in a ring around the bed?  But nothing happens.  The Mark throbs hotly on his arm, no more or less than always.

_ A _

Dean blinks, rubs the heel of his left hand into his eyes.  But what he is seeing now does not disappear, it is real.  He can see Castiel’s stars.  He sees them, some of them.  They are all pulled in close to Castiel’s body, protecting him, like armor, like a shield on his back, he almost leans forward, under their weight.  They are trembling, now.   

Castiel’s hand is not trembling.  It is steady as the base of the pillars that hold the sky, though just as ready to shatter.

Castiel’s hand is  _ inevitable _ .  It was written, and so it will be.  Even if the sky falls down.    

_ S _

Dean is falling.  Finally, finally.  He his falling, and there is no ground beneath him to hurt him and end his fall, ever, and he is falling, and lights flicker around him and it is a warm, slow, fall because the darkness wraps around him like velvet. This is the fall that will never end.  This is the darkness that he hoped-- against all odds, against all the other darknesses that sought him and claimed him-- that he would fall to.  There is no beginning, there is no end, there is only this beautiful, soft, darkness.

And in it, tiny motes at first but accelerating, spinning, wrapping themselves around Dean, around Castiel, the stars.  Oh God, so many stars.  

There is no way to tell where Castiel’s hand, holding the needle, ends, and Dean’s hand, closed in a fist, begins.  There are only stars.  Dean can see them, more, and more, and more, and more, until the number of them is overwhelming, too many to ever be counted, too many to hold all in one mind.  And they are lit so bright, every one, and he is falling through them.

He can feel the heat of every one.  He falls through them, one after another; they become so dense that there is hardly any black between them and every one, every one adds to that heat.  

It is so hot, that burning, that fire, it roars.  It melts the ice around his heart.  It melts the iron guard beneath the ice, as if it were only water, and not hard forged metal.  It melts the locks on the chains that hold the guard together.  And when it reaches his heart…

_ “Cas,”  _ he whispers.  He can barely talk.  Tears are falling from his eyes.  They are stars, too.  

Love.

It’s in his heart and his heart is turning to gold.  It’s warm and it’s leaking into his veins and it’s so bright.  

Love.

He can see Castiel’s eyes through his tears and they are blurry but they look the same as they have always looked.  Castiel has always looked at him this way.  This is the way Castiel has always felt about him.   _ This is the way Castiel has always looked at him.  This is the way Castiel has always felt about him.   _ Just like this.  From the first day.  From the first moment.  Castiel loved him.  Castiel  _ LOVED  _ him.    

The stars, they echo outward, they spiral, they are the arms of the galaxy and they spin, out into far reaches.  They are infinite, they are limitless, they are  _ eternal _ .  There is no way to call them back.  There is no way to count every one, to catch every one and snuff it out.  It is not  _ possible _ for them to not exist.  The universe  _ bends _ around them, Dean can see its contour.  It cannot be unbent.  How could anyone, unbend the universe?  It cannot be done.  This is its shape.  This what is, all that is.  Dean and Castiel,  _ forever _ , and Dean’s whole body is turning to gold.          

_ “Cas,”  _ has it been a moment since Dean whispered this the first time, or a hundred years?  It doesn’t matter, because Castiel is still looking at him with the same eyes, the deepest eyes, the most beautiful.  Those eyes, those eyes that have always looked at him like this, always seen him like this, always been containing this feeling behind them…

The needle has dropped from Castiel’s hand onto the bed and he is holding Dean’s palm, thumb caressing over the letters on his fingers, in a trance.  

C. A. S.

C. A. S.    
  
C. A. S.  

He leans down and kisses.  L. O. V. E. C. A. S.

He kisses the letters again, and again, traces them with the point of his tongue.  He wants to kiss them forever, he could never kiss them enough times.  His. His.  His his his.  He knows what it is, to count Dean’s name until it becomes the beat of his heart, but that would not be enough times, for kissing these letters, this  _ promise _ , on Dean’s skin.  

And Dean.  While Castiel kisses… His heart.  His heart beats.  He feels it beat.  It has been so heavy, and so numb; it has been servile to black eyes for so long, it has been afraid of what it might feel-- _ too much, too much _ \-- or of what it might become--  _ black, shrivelled, nothing--  _ it has been sore and cold and guarded so closely.  But he feels it beat.  

_Ka-thump._

_Ka-thump._   

It beats and it doesn’t hurt.  It feels… it feels  _ devotion _ .  It feels strength, and warmth, and safety.  He listens to his heart--  _ he is able to listen to his heart, and not be afraid!--  _ and it tells him that he will be taken care of, that he  _ matters _ , that whatever happens, no matter how dark or how grim, Castiel will try to keep him, just like this, here, warm, safe.  With his sword, with his wings, with his new-grace and and his soul, with  _ everything _ , with an iron fire poker and a blanket and a bathtub, if he has to, Castiel will guard him and give of himself so that Dean can stay here just like this.  Warm and safe, and in Castiel’s arms.  Castiel will let him keep this moment.  Castiel will give him this moment, forever.    

Loved.  This is what it feels like.  To be loved.  

_ Oh my god.  This is what it feels like.  This is what it feels like, to be loved.   _

_ “Cas,” _ he says again, a second century gone by, falling.   

“Dean,” Castiel replies, and holds Dean’s face with his hands.  Gently, so gently, so slowly, he turns, leans, eases, so that they are lying on their sides, heads pillowed, facing each other.  Castiel holding Dean’s face, Dean’s hands on top of Castiel’s.  

Dean staring into Castiel’s eyes.  Castiel staring back.

Dean feeling what Castiel is feeling, behind those eyes, for the first time.  It’s like a drug, this feeling, it’s like every drug, it warms, it eases, it makes everything brighter, better, it comforts and makes sparks burst behind his eyes and it makes him want to grind against Cas under flashing lights and fuck him until he cries and it makes him want to hold Cas in this bed and  _ stay  _ and make love to him and while  _ he  _ cries because he loves him so much, he loves him so, so much his angel and  _ his angel loves him back _ , he does, he can feel it.  And it’s everything, it’s better than...

It makes him want to go out to the sky and bring Castiel back the moon, and hang it on a silver chain around his neck.

It makes him want to go back to Heaven, and kill all the angels, again.

It makes him want cover Castiel’s body with his own and whisper  _ I love you _ into Castiel’s ear and feel him shudder beneath him, and bite his earlobe and kiss him and touch him and wrap him up in such sweetness.

It makes him into a diamond.  It makes him into an emerald.  It makes him a hawk, a lion, a wolf.  It makes him into the sun.  

Nothing else, no one else, nothing matters, only this.  Only feeling this, just this.  Lying here, staring into Castiel’s eyes, feeling his heart again, feeling it beat, listening to it sing the song that brings the sun.  He had thought that the Mark might burn, might rage, might try to take him, when Castiel made this claim.  But he can’t even feel it.  It has receded to nothing.  It  _ is _ nothing, compared to this.  Compared to this… he wishes he would have known.  God, so much would have been different, if he had known.  There would have been so much less…  _ heartache _ .    

_ “Cas,”  _ he says a third time, a third century of falling, and the stars spin around them, and arc over the bed, lighting the dark room.  Have the torches burned down, in these centuries?  Have desert dunes been blown into glass?  Has the sea risen up and covered the Earth?  Has the moon fallen down, out of the sky?  Tears are still leaking from Dean’s eyes, even so.  “ _ How _ ?”

_ How?   _

_ How can you?   _

_ How… What was the flicker, the first shine, that turned in to this?   _

_ How did it kindle?  Did you watch it grow, from inside your heart until it brushed up against the edge of the universe and made the universe bend?  Did you know what it was?   _

_ How can you contain it?   _

_ How does it not burn you from the inside out, every day?   _

_ How have you sustained it, through despair, and betrayal, death, the Fall?   _

_ How, for me?  Only for me?   _

_ How?   _

“ _ Dean _ ,” Castiel whispers, raw, cut open, wide, empty of blood even though he was healed.  Feeling how Dean feels.  Feeling the ice melt.  Feeling the hot iron drip away and the spikes turn to nubs and vanish and the chains unlock and fall away and seeing the rays of the sun burst free.  “ _ You.”   _

_ You. _

_ You never gave up, no matter how afraid you were, how impossible your enemy. _

_ You were strong.  You should have been defeated so many times, a human, only one, but you were so strong.   _

_ You weren’t perfect.  You were coarse and quick to judge and you had a temper and sometimes you turned it on me when I didn’t deserve it and you never apologized. _

_ You never apologized with words, but there was so much pain in your eyes.  There was so much coiled under your skin, if your hand brushed mine.   _

_ You had  _ **_so_ ** _ much pain in your eyes.  And no one else saw it, or they pretended they didn’t or you fooled them, or you didn’t let them see.  But I always saw.  And I always wanted to ease it.  Even if it was only a little.  Even when you didn’t think you deserved it.   _

_ You always knew what was right, somehow, you knew, the angels should have known but they didn’t and you did, you knew how to save us all. _

_ You saved me.  Over and over and over and over and you became my home.   _

_ You came for me.  When no one else did.  When I deserved it and when I didn’t.     _

_ You fought for me. _

_ You walked through a forest shining in armor, and you found me in a clearing and you knelt at my feet and you gave me a crown.  You did, or you would, or you did, or you will.     _

_ You taught me what love was.  I didn’t know its name, before you. _

_ You were so beautiful. _

_ Your eyes were green like autumn leaves. _

_ You. _

_ That is how. _

 

*****

 

No one comes to check on Sam for a long time.  He wears all the clothes that Castiel brought him from the bunker, he wears them again, he washes them in the small stream in his chamber, he hangs them to dry on the lip of the stone shelf that he sleeps on.

He eats all the food that Castiel brought him.  He drinks a lot of water, until his stomach is full and sloshing.  He scrapes the berry devil’s trap up off the floor, and gnaws on the sweetness, on his fingers.  

His cheeks grow thin.  His clothes hang, on his frame.

He wonders if Dean is dead, Castiel dead; he wonders what killed them and how and if he will be able to stop it, when it comes for him.  

When his cheeks are even thinner and he has lost count of the days, he wonders if there is still an Earth, he wonders if he will ever see it again.  He wonders if it was Dean and Castiel that destroyed it, and if he would have been able to stop them.  

No one comes to check on Sam, for a long time.

 

*****

_ “How?” _

_ “You.” _

_ Me?  Just me?   _

_ Oh.   _

_ Oh. _

_ Oh.   _

**_Castiel._ ** __

Dean inhales a hard, quick, breath and blinks star-tears from his eyes and lets himself fall, fall, tumble in the velvet black.  Stars swirl all around him, little points of light, they surround him, they become so thick that there is hardly any black at all.  

And then there is no black, only stars.  

And his eyes  _ gleam, _ and light up the dark room, and Castiel loves him, so much, and his eyes gleam even brighter.  

“Beautiful,” Castiel whispers, “my hero.  There he is,” his voice is almost silent by the end, but his meaning is carried in his eyes, in his hands, in his blood on Dean’s skin.  By his Name.  By his Name Dean sees himself, Castiel’s hero, in armor, gleaming, a ray of light catching his hair, his eyes flashing gold.  In his hands is a sword, and he holds it in silver gauntlets.  But on their knuckles, risen in gold, seven letters.  

L O V E C A S

By his Name Dean is transported, and the ray of light catching his hair strikes him through stained glass, through tall ceilings of a stone cathedral.  And there, Castiel’s choir sings in the sept and Dean can  _ hear it _ , he can hear it scream for him and shatter the pillars that hold up the sky.

The glass in the windows shatters, too.  It rains to the ground in a million shards, sharp jewels, green, sapphire, ruby, on the cathedral floor.  Dean watches them fall.  He watches them break from the iron bezels of the windows, and break again when they smash on the floor.  

He is watching them, when wooden door creaks open at the end of the nave.  

Dean turns his head.

And there is Castiel.  He is all in white.  It is an initiate’s garment that Dean does not recognize, it probably is correct to the period of his armor, Dean imagines, but he doesn’t care, because Castiel’s eyes are still blue and Dean’s Name still glows, on his neck and he is still looking at Dean exactly the same way he was in their room.  Exactly the same way he always has.      

“‘S that hurt you, Cas?” He asks about the shattering, gesturing to the windows, to the sky falling out of the heavens beyond. Though he knows, he knows it doesn’t hurt, he can feel it, it is joyful.  It is carbon becoming a diamond.  It is dust and gravity becoming a world.  

“No,” Castiel whispers, and even this word, a negation, is still joyful.  “But the sky is falling.”  His voice echoes against the high stone ceilings, rich and deep.  

“Don’ fuckin’ care about the sky,” Dean says.  “Sky’s the fuckin’ angels’ problem.  They can deal with the fuckin’ sky.”  The sky can fall.  Dean will stay here.  He will  _ stay. _

“They’re dead,” Castiel reminds him.  

“Not all of them.  Some of them hid.  I didn’t look too long, for the ones that hid.  Had to always come back to you.  So you wouldn’t be cold, remember?”  

“I remember,” Castiel says.  He walks down the aisle. He takes Dean’s face in his hands.  He kisses Dean on the lips.  “I remember.  You killed them and the Mark made you so powerful, so violent, but you kissed me so softly, like I might break.  Do you remember?”

Dean rests his sword against the altar, and holds Castiel’s hands under his own, just as he is doing in their bed, in the Pit, as they lay there, staring at each other, feeling this dream.  “I remember, Cas.”

“Kiss me like that again,” Castiel whispers, so quiet between them though the cathedral is so large, so empty.  

“OK, Cas.  OK.”  And he takes off his gauntlets, so he can feel Castiel’s skin, but still there, on his knuckles, just where the letters were raised on his armor

L O V E C A S

“Need you,” he whispers, as his lips touch Castiel’s neck.  “Need you, angel, please,” as his thumb slides behind Castiel’s ear and strokes.  

Castiel moans a high moan, and his knees break underneath him, and Dean feels it, he  _ feels  _ it as he catches Castiel in his arms and doesn’t let him fall, he feels how good it is, for Castiel, he feels Castiel’s heart grow arms that all reach out towards him, he feels how much Castiel needs him, too.  

He  _ sees _ the cathedral fill with stars, sees them twist and spiral and wrap around them.  Around them both, as though they were one.  

He kisses Castiel as best as he can remember.  So sweetly, so soft and careful.  

And he falls.

 

*****

Ishkar counts the colors of the sunset.  There is red and pink and yellow, of course.  There is burnt orange and crimson and violet, there is lavender.  There is indigo, there is sapphire.  There is black.  The night sky.  Their love.  

They stand and gaze at the night sky, when it is full, from the balcony of their cold fortress.  They gaze at it with longing.  It is so beautiful, their sky, but it is so far away.

Usually, the night sky does not change.  Usually, it is like Ishkar.  It is constant.  It remains.  

But tonight there are new stars.  Tonight there are many.  Ishkar counts their colors too.  Silver.  Gold.  With a core of emerald.  

 

*****

Dean falls.  

Through stars, and darkness.

Sometimes some of the darkness is darker, is  _ too dark _ , like there should be a light there, but there isn’t.  There are  _ shadows _ in this darkness, though there is nothing to cast them, and there should be only light.

They fall by him, and he starts to think that he recognizes the shapes of these shadows.  Why does he… why does he recognize shapes of darkness in darkness?  He hasn’t fallen into this darkness, before, though he has wanted to.  But these shapes are so... familiar, somehow, in their absence.   They are familiar, like _ deja vu _ , familiar like things that he has not seen before, but thinks that he has. They are familiar like the feeling of missing something that has been missing for a long time.

That one, there.  It reminds him of… of lightning?  Of lightning, and Castiel?  

Was it… is that the shape of the time, they were together, and Castiel was like a storm and Dean a sailor lost in it, only trying to find his way?  Is that what these shapes are, is that why they are familiar?  Are they blackened by his eyes?  Did he... did he put those shadows there, between Castiel’s stars?  Do they hurt, do they...

“Dean?” Castiel says, feeling ice creep back into Dean’s heart, feeling a question, there.  “What--”

Dean is moving in slow motion, time is dilating so that there is another century, between Castiel asking him ‘What’ and whatever he is about to say next.  

And Dean falls and, he tries to watch the lightning-one, that shadow, as it drops away above him.  

_ Is that the shape of us together? _

_ Did I ruin him?   _

_ What did it feel like?   _

Dean is experiencing Castiel’s love now, his stars, their heat, but could he experience those shadows, too?  Could he feel what it was like for Castiel to… have him… that way?  Were they… were they cold, did he make Castiel cold, is that why there are shadows?    

He wants to know.  He wants to  _ know _ .

One hand is in Castiel’s hair, holding his head up, holding his lips close to Dean’s.  The hand that says CAS.

That hand slides down.  To Castiel’s neck.  To Dean’s Name there.  

“Dean, what--” Castiel tries to ask again, but it is too late.  

 

*****

Time speeds back up.  Before, Dean was falling so slowly, and there were ages, between Castiel’s words.

Now, everything happens at once.  All the shadows, they are annihilated by light.  Every one, all in one moment.  It is too much.  It is too much.  Dean cries out, but he can’t hear himself over the explosions.  If he could take his hand back, back off of Castiel’s neck, maybe it would stop, maybe… but he doesn’t have time, it all happens too fast too fast.  It all happens at once, it happens like this:

_ Flash. _

Dean, raking leaves, in Cicero.  The-sun-in-his-hair-the-grass-at-his-feet.

_ Flash _ .

Dean sitting on his deck, looking at the stars, drinking a beer.  He-is-alone-but-he-is-not-alone.

_ Flash.   _

Dean having a bad dream, a dream that was eased.  Castiel-was-there-he-was-there.  

_ Flash. _

A dream of a field.  Flowers-grow-all-around-him-they-grow-so-fast.

_ Flash.   _

A dream of an angel, spiraling down out of the sky.  Banded with gold.  Castiel-it-was-Castiel-it-was-Castiel-he-was-there.

_ Flash.   _

Lightning.  Castiel-Castiel-Castiel-The-Silver-God.

_ Flash.  Flash.  Flash. FLASH.  FLASHFLASHFLASHFLASHFLASH. _

Dean gasps.  Castiel gasps. Deep, heavy, inhales, like they have been drowning and have just come up for air.  Exactly at the same time.  Their eyes open.  Their eyes lock.

And Dean remembers everything.  Oh God, he remembers everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <3 These two.
> 
> The next chapters will be devoted to Dean... remembering. Chapter 19 is already started. It is titled "The Siege." I cannot fucking wait!
> 
> On Tumblr, I am brainheartpizza (https://www.tumblr.com/blog/brainheartpizza). I post unedited excerpts between AO3 updates!


	19. The Siege

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He was the hero, then, already, always, already who the darkness fears, even when the hellhounds shredded him and dragged him down. He was already the reason that Castiel was no longer a star. He had many plans to escape the Pit, and he executed every one of them. Many upon many, good plans and then decent plans and then desperate plans and then one in ten, one in a thousand, one in a million plans. He had more plans than he had days living on Earth, but they all failed, every one, and he became broken anyway.
> 
> **Please notice the new warnings and tags, and please see the end notes for additional warnings. This chapter graphically depicts Dean's time in Hell.***

Chapter 19:  The Siege

 

 _When flowers gaze at you_   
_They're not the only ones_ _  
Who cry when they see you_

\--Boston, Augustana

 

_Dean remembers everything.  Oh God, he remembers everything._

And he falls.

 

*****

There was a time when Dean did not know Castiel.  Even the universe does not remember this, because this was in the time before the universe was bent _._ But there was a time. There was a time when there was no gold tint to Castiel's stars, and no heart of emerald.  

They were only silver, and bright.  Castiel was still beautiful then, so beautiful, but he was cold, and hard.  He was beautiful like a weapon, sharp at every edge, dangerous.  Full of fury and the judgement of the Lord.  Infallible, he was the righteous hand of the Father.  He had been a star, once, but he had returned.  Still all full of cold fire.

In this time, he was beautiful, he was sharp and gleaming and dutiful and pure, so pure, but Dean did not know him.  Dean was far from Heaven, and its angels.  Dean was dull, and harried, and dirty.  He was banished, to the Pit, on the racks or between them. Forever, he thought.  And it would be forever, he was right, but it would not always be a banishment.  

Dean didn't know Castiel, in the place where he would know all of Castiel.  He was banished, in the place where he would rule.

On the racks, in that time, he had few tools.  Meager.  He had a rusty pair of pliers.  He had a screwdriver, also rusted.  He had a box cutter.  It made a terrible, metallic click when he opened it or closed it.  And sometimes that was all he would do, open it, and close it, and stare through his rack and whatever was on it with a vacant look in his eyes.

If he clicked and stared for too long, a whip would find his back.  Then he would cut.  Not because the whip hurt him, not really, he had been whipped so many times, by then, but because it meant something worse.  If he didn’t cut, he was whipped, and if he still didn’t cut, he would be put back on the rack himself.  Not just any rack.   _Alistair’s_ rack.  And he was vacant, empty, beaten but he still didn't want Alistair’s attention.  He didn’t want that, not ever, no matter what Alistair whispered in his ear, of sweetness or of threat.  

Who dared, in this time, to put a whip to the Master?  To the First Knight?  To the god-killer?  Who could have dared to threaten, no matter how ancient or how black their heart?

But Dean did not have these titles, yet.  He did not have the First Blade.  He was not the Master, or the First Knight, or even the sword of Heaven.  Demons did not cower, when he arrived in their row of racks.  They hardly noticed him at all.  He was so tired, and small; he moved slowly and sluggishly, and there was nothing bright, nothing shining about him.

There was nothing that the demons should fear.  And so they did not cower.  And if they did notice him, they only spat at him.  Human, they jeered.  Not demon.  Too pretty.  Grimy, flickery, weak soul inside instead of fierce black smoke.  

They did not know how many of them would die at his hand.  The did not know that he would become the chosen of Heaven, or the First among them.  They only spat, and hissed what they would do to his too pretty face.

He wiped their spit away, though it burned, and pretended he didn't speak their language.

He went bare foot, bare chested amongst the racks.  Though the rocks were sharp and hurt his feet, he barely felt them, he was so numb.  His skin was pale, and covered with grime and blood so crusted and thick that it cracked and flaked.  Except where tear tracks washed him clean.  Sometimes tears did still leak from his vacant eyes, though he was too numb to feel them.

He was bare chested, but he wore pants.  Brown leather pants.  They had an _A_ embroidered over his right hip, in bright red thread.   _A_ for _Alistair._ He didn't like them.  He didn't like having that A, on his hip.  He didn't like it when the demons saw it, even if it meant they spat at him less, and were silent, when he passed.  He tried to hide it, once, with his hand, as he scurried between racks.  But that got him the whip, too.  And a promise that next time, the _A_ would be burned in to his skin.  

So he only hid it once, that once.  A brand would be worse.  So much worse, than only an _A,_ embroidered on his hip.  A risen, red, brand on the pale skin of his corpse.  That would be worse.  Not because it would hurt, again, not because of the pain, not because of that.  Because of what it would mean.  He did not want to belong to Alistair.  He did not.  No matter what he pretended or what promises were whispered in his ear by a tongue weeping with sores.  He did not want that.  

So he didn't like his pants, even if he was one of only a few in the sea of sweating, bleeding, bodies that got to wear them instead of only rags.

Of course he didn't like them.  Of course he didn’t like belonging to Alistair.  He didn't like being whipped, either.  He didn't like his box cutter, or his screwdriver, or his pliers.  He didn't like Hell, he didn't like being dead, he missed his brother, he didn't like knowing his dad was a bastard, finally, and not being able to do anything about it.  He hurt, everywhere, sliced and bruised and bitten and even set on fire.  And ‘didn’t like’ seemed so vague to him, even then, shouldn’t he hate, shouldn’t he be furious, shouldn’t he be boiling for vengeance or ready to kill?  He thought he should.  But he didn’t have the energy, for any of that.  He only had the energy to endure.  To be numb, and to be aware, behind his vacant eyes as he clicked his box cutter, that he did not like what he was doing, what he was wearing, where he was, anything at all.  

Why did he settle for enduring?  We can ask this now, in this time, when the universe has bent so far away from his time of banishment.  It is safe, to ask, and not fear the whip.  Why did he let himself be numb, instead of a flame?  He, the hero, the bright one?  For forty years, why?  Where was his plan?  He still had his blood, his brain, his heart; he was still breathing, he had assets-- screwdriver, pliers, box cutter, Alistair’s favor--even if they were meager, and unwanted, so where was his plan?  Even if it was terrible, a one in a million shot, he was already dead, he was already in Hell, how could it get worse?  How did he become so _broken?_ Why did he not fight, instead of only endure?

This is why:  He was not numb from the start.  He began with fighting, not durance.  He was the hero, then, already, always, already _who the darkness fears,_ even when the hellhounds shred him and dragged him down.  He was already the reason that Castiel was no longer a star.  He had many plans, and he executed every one of them.  Many upon many, good plans and then decent plans and then desperate plans and then one in ten, one in a thousand, one in a million plans.  He had more plans than he had days living on Earth, but they all failed, every one, and he became broken anyway.

 

*****

 

_His first day on the racks, 366 days after he made his deal, a faceless, nameless, demon came for him.  It worked him, untiring, but he endured, not even screaming, only grinding his teeth and clenching his fists and waiting for his moment, to end this.  He waited through all the pain that the demon gave him, every gnaw and tear.  Until it walked away, bored with its stoic subject that did not scream or beg, and he slipped a scalpel into his palm from the tray it left behind.  He cut through the leather cuffs holding him down.  He attacked the demon from behind, and stabbed it the neck, and ran._

_Just like in Styne castle.  A good plan, a plan that had worked before.  But Alistair, Master, grabbed him at the end of the row, with a hand as inescapable as his deal with death,  and gave him a kiss on the forehead.  “Oh, pretty.  We haven't even started.”_

_Dean was bound to his next rack with chains._

 

_*****_

_He was sent an incubus, Asmodean.  He licked his lips and looked at it from under his eyelashes, mouth parted.  He swallowed his bile and kissed it back when it kissed him, and moaned.  “Let me,” He said, pretending, looking at its huge, hard, cock, and licked his lips again with a stone in his stomach and a callous starting to grow over his heart._

_It unchained him.  It pushed him to his knees.  They hurt, when they hit the hard stone.  He lowered his head, opened his mouth, and then hit the incubus in the face with the open end of his chains.  He hit it again and again, too many times, really, wasting seconds he needed for escape to hit it another time, and another.  Until its brains were showing and its face was a ruin._

_He ran again.  The opposite way, from his last attempt.  Alistair was there anyway.  Alistair had been watching the whole time.  He always watched, everything in the racks, from a high platform in the center of the Pit, raised above them all. He held Dean's face in his clawed, steady hand and smoothed back his hair, and told him, “I would let you, pretty.”_

_Dean spat on him, but he was not sent an incubus again.  Alistair was jealous._

 

_*****_

_A demon woman came to him, with a snake on her shoulder.  She looked at him for a long time, but did not touch, did not speak, only hummed while her snake swayed._

_It swayed gently, easily, on her shoulder, like all around it there were not the sounds of pain.  It did not seem to stop swaying, it did not even seem to move before its fangs were sunk into Dean's neck.  It seemed to… feed, on him; its mouth was greedy.  Its teeth were poison, venom, fire, agony, and as it fed Dean began to hurt, everywhere, like his skin was being peeled off his body and held over the flame.  He clenched his jaw, and his fists, and looked the demon woman in the eye.  She nodded her head at him, at his bravery, only the smallest degree.  She appreciated bravery.  The angel was brave.  She nodded at Dean, but she did not call the green one back._

_When it was done feeding, and Dean was slumped in his chains, it returned to the demon woman's shoulder.  He didn't see it move, but there it was, looking at him again, swaying, a drop of poison hanging from its fangs. “Mmmmmmmm,” the demon woman said.  “Mmmmmmmm.  Soon.”_

_“Please,” He begged her, because she spoke to him and did not demean him or threaten him.  It was so little, not even kindness, really, only an absence of malignance.  He had not begged any of his other visitors.  But he had so little. “Please.”_

_She huffed a laugh.  “You are stupid, little ox, but you will love him.”  And she patted him on the head, and disappeared._

_He didn't think he would love anyone.  Not here.  The callous on his heart had become a stone, and it got harder each day.  It had to._

_Alistair appeared in front of him, as his heart hardened.  He slapped Dean, hard enough to break his cheekbone.  “What did she want with you?”  He yelled, in Dean’s face.  Dean did not answer, of course.  He did not know, and would not have answered if he did.  “What could_ **_she_ ** _possibly want, with_ **_you_ ** _?”  This question more quiet, more curious, more to himself than to Dean, shaking his head, worrying his lip, and wondering._

_“You're afraid of her,” Dean smirked, through the blood in his mouth, in his nose, knowing what this would cost him and not caring.  “You don't know what she wants and it makes you afraid.”_

_Alistair backhanded him, broke the other cheek.  “You're the one that should be afraid, pretty,” he said, but Dean wasn't.  Not then.  Not yet.  He was still so brave._

 

_*****_

_He was sent a huge, hulking demon in black leather, hooded.  “Not into leather,” Dean taunted it, when it arrived, but it didn't say anything._

_It never said anything._

_It had a cleaver that it handled like a lover.  But did not use so gently as that.  It swung it like it was swinging at a tree, an ancient tree, to fell.  And in that manner it cut off Dean's feet, his hands, his arms, his fingers, his toes, his ears, his cock. It cut them off, hacked them like rotting limbs and sewed them back on again and then cut them off another time.  It cut through skin, and bone; muscle,and sinew.  It hurt.  Dean screamed, until he was hoarse.  It was the first day he had really screamed on the racks like that.  Not the last._

_The cowled demon, it seemed, grew bored with Dean's screams, not aroused by them as the others might have been, and it sewed Dean's mouth shut with his dismembered cock stuffed inside.  It left him that way, for the night, sliced apart and humiliated._

_Alistair came to him, then, when the demon had gone home to its hovel and Dean was alone.  He caressed the corner of Dean's swollen lips with a calloused thumb, and kissed him there._

_“Beautiful,” he said, and though Dean was defiled, exhausted, covered in blood and bile and only stitched together like an autopsied corpse by thick black thread, it seemed that Alistair meant it, meant Dean was beautiful, just like this.  Maybe more beautiful than he had been to Alistair ever before.  This was Alistair's aesthetic-- pain, and subjugation._

_Dean couldn't spit at him, because his mouth was sewn closed, but he jerked against his restraints, though it hurt his seams where he was sewn together._

_“Oryx likes you, pretty.”  Alistair said, and stared at Dean’s bloodless lips, for a moment.  “And I like seeing you, like this.” He looked back up, then, like he had made a decision.  “You will be together for a while, I think.”_

_Dean tried to make his gaze angry, and steely.  But Alistair kissed him again, and said, “Don't worry pretty.  You’ll be mine, in the end,” and walked away._

 

_*_

_“Alistair says you like me,” Dean smirked (falsely, strained, hiding) at Oryx the next morning, as Oryx prepared the tray of instruments he would use on Dean all day long.  First, of course, cleaver, loved one.  Stainless steel and leather handled, sharpened to a new hone with a butcher’s strap and placed aside with reverence and a long touch.  Hammer.  Wooden and flat headed.  Heavy enough to turn bone to dust.  Only a tool, not like the cleaver, not a lover or even a friend, set aside without a second thought.  Scalpel.  For cutting through soft tissue, or small pieces of skin.  Even less consideration than the hammer, so small, and weak.  Black thread, thick, almost yarn, spooled heavy and long on a cork spindle.  For sewing flesh.  Needle, silver and curved and wicked sharp, to sew it with._

_Oryx didn't say anything as he prepared, ignoring Dean, sharpening his cleaver, threading his needle.   But he sewed Dean's mouth shut first, that day, so that he did not have to endure any more of his smirking.  Dean considered it a win, anyway, because at least his balls weren't stuffed in there all night._

 

_*_

_“Makes sense you would keep coming back, day after day, if you like me,” Dean said, picking up his conversation from the day before, when he was healed and it was morning and Oryx arrived again._

_But again, Oryx didn't say anything, only prepared his tray and, as soon as it was ready, sewed Dean’s mouth shut, and endured his conversation no more._

_Dean talked to him like that, a one way conversation held one sentence a day before his mouth got sewn shut, then 24 hours to think about what he would say when next the stitches mended and faded and Oryx came again.  24 hours to plan.  It helped him to keep his mind off the pain.  He tried to convince himself of that, that making his plan helped him to keep his mind off the pain.  Even if he only planned one sentence, in 24 hours._

 

_*_

 

_“But if you like me, why do you always sew my mouth shut?”  A gambit to get Oryx to leave his mouth unsewn, so Dean could try to charm him.  Failed, when Oryx sewed his mouth shut again, immediately._

 

_*_

 

_“Ok, sure, maybe you don't like me for my conversation, I admit, I ain’t exactly read all the classics.  But then why do you cut off my hands?”  A gambit to try to get his hands on Oryx, like he had with the incubus, or on his cleaver, like he had with the scalpel of the first, nameless, demon.  Failed, when Oryx sewed his mouth shut and then cut off his hands immediately after._

 

_*_

_“The other demons, they like my hands, and my mouth.”  Trying not to remember, trying not to remember.  “They say I'm ‘pretty,’” bitterly “too pretty.  But you put your thread through my lips, and put my hands on your slab and break the bones with your hammer.”  And it hurts, it hurts, somehow it hurts his hands even after they have been cut off from his body, to be pulverized, like that.  It hurts every time._

_Oryx has not touched him yet today, is listening to him talk from the shadow under his hood, instead of ignoring him and preparing to sew his mouth shut.  Dean rushes through more words, hoping that he is making progress, finally.  “Just don't understand why you come every day, but you don't use me the way the others do.”  And he doesn't, really.  This is barely even a ruse-- to get to know Oryx better, to humanize him, or himself, he doesn’t even know--it’s too close to being only the truth with no plan behind it._

_Oryx still sews his mouth shut and cuts off his hands, and he still doesn’t say a word, but he answers Dean’s question, in his way.  When the bones in Dean’s hands have been turned to dust with his hammer, he picks his scalpel up off his tray and holds it in front of Dean’s face for a long, long second._

_Then he cuts out Dean’s eyes._

_‘So that’s what he likes about me,’ Dean thinks, in the moment when blood loss would make him unconscious, pain blacken his thoughts to shock, if he wasn’t only a corpse already._

_But he is a corpse already, so he does not lose consciousness.  No, instead, when Oryx puts his eyes down next to the now bloody scalpel, irises pointed back at his mutilated body, he is not able to sink into shock.  He is only able to watch himself be dismembered for the rest of the day.  He can’t even close his eyes.  His eyelids are still attached to his body._

_Somehow it doesn’t hurt as much, when he’s watching it.   He tries to convince himself of that, too.  Like it’s not really happening to him.  He tries to focus on this development--that Oryx likes his eyes-- and he tries to make a plan._

_At the end of the day, Oryx pops his eyes back into their sockets and sews his eyelids shut so they can heal up and be ready to be sliced out again the next day.  It feels like rest, just to have his eyes closed, even if they are sewn shut._

 

_*_

_“So you like my eyes, I get it.”  Oryx ignores him, as always, and prepares his tray.  “But why cut them out and then put them beside you, where you can’t see them?  Why sew them back into my face at the end of the night?”  And then the gambit, desperate, desperate “Why not take them with you, keep them?”   Anything to get off the rack, even if only for a little while, even if only a part of him, even if he has to go with Oryx.  A desperate plan, a terrible plan by any sane metric, to goad a demon into cutting out his eyes._

_Oryx turns around with his needle threaded, to sew Dean’s lips shut, but pauses, for a moment.  Dean can’t see his face in the shadow of his cowl, but he imagines that Oryx is looking at his eyes.  He tries to make them wide.  He tries to make them warm, though he doesn't really remember how.  He knows that he used to be able to do that.   How long has it been, since then?  A year?  It's so hard to tell, always in pain…_

_But he thinks he used to be able to get away with anything, get anything, with his eyes.  How was that possible?  Was that even real?  How could it be that anything could ever have been so easy, as to want something and open his eyes wide and get it?_

_He does not know what Oryx is thinking as he bares his eyes.  He does not even know if Oryx can think, or if he is only a skin pulled tight over black smoke that only rages and tries to make pain._

_He does not know that the only thing Oryx has had for himself in thousands of years is his cleaver.  He does not know that Oryx loves his cleaver, because it is_ **_his_ ** _, and it is all that is his-- truly, only, his-- but that he hates it too, because it only brings pain.  He does not know that Oryx was a human once too, so long ago, and that he loved birds, and bright-eyed things.  He does not know how much Oryx wants something again, just one thing, anything, that is not about pain.  He does not know that that is why Oryx likes his eyes: because they are beautiful.  The most beautiful prize, in all of the Pit._

_Oryx still sews his mouth shut, because he doesn't know how to say any of this any more.  He only knows how to hurt, and how to want.  He still cuts Dean's hands off.  But he does not remove Dean’s eyes all day.  And all day, there are pauses, between swings of his cleaver, when Dean thinks Oryx must be looking at his eyes.  Dean understands, from those pauses, that this is the reason that Oryx comes to him.  Not to hurt him, though he does, but because the hurting is what it costs, to look at his eyes._

_He lets them fill with tears.  He lets them be mournful, and wide._

_Oryx’s pauses get longer, and longer, as the day goes on.  As tears rim around Dean’s eyes and glimmer in the firelight.  Longer, and longer, until at the end of the day, at the end of a stare, Oryx puts down his cleaver, and picks up his scalpel, and scoops Dean’s eyes out, in two, quick twists.  Just like that.  Just like he did the day before._

_But this time he looks around, nervously, after he does it, as if all that he does to Dean on the rack is sanctioned, but what he is about to do might not be._

_His nervousness does not stop him. He picks Dean's eyes up and pockets them in a pouch on his belt, like gems, like treasure.   He puts down his scalpel and picks up his cleaver, line he does at the end of every other day.  Does his hand tremble, once?  Is it with dread, or anticipation?_

_He walks away from the rack.  Dean’s body left behind there, blind, slumped, exhausted, a corpse with its hands and feet sewn on with thick black thread like it is a murder victim in a morgue._

_Oryx walks right out of the racks with his cleaver rested on his shoulder.  Right past the Pit Lords on their pedestals, flicking their whips, right past Alistair on his platform, pacing, watching over the violence with a sneer.  Oryx walks straight out, no search, no pat down, no seizure of Dean's concealed body parts._

_They didn't search him, Dean thinks.  He walked right out._

_A hundred new plans bloom:_

_Maybe he can walk out with more of me._

_Maybe I can steal his costume and walk out wearing it._

_Maybe I can call my body to me, with my eyes, somehow._

_Maybe if even my eyes escape, all of me will._

_Maybe…_

_Maybe…_

_Maybe…_

 

_*_

_Oryx did not tour the Pit with Dean in his belt, and it wouldn’t have mattered if he had, because all Dean could see was the lint gathered around him.  With his cleaver over his shoulder and his cowl covering his face, he stalked straight to his hovel in the demon pens._

_It was only just a bare scrape out of the basalt wall of the Pit.  Not really a cave, it would not have kept off the rain, if it ever rained in Hell; it would not have protected him from the winds, if they ever blew.  It was just a scrape of rock, set back a few inches into the wall, with a circle of rocks for a fire.  A leather mat for sleeping.  And a wooden rack for his cleaver.  Polished to a shine; with use, not with artifice, or devotion._

_He set Dean’s eyes at the head of his sleeping mat, and sat down across the fire circle to feed himself a rotting, fuming stew.  He ate it joylessly, mechanically.  Dean was surprised that he ate it at all, that anyone would eat that.  Especially since he didn’t think demons even had to eat.  Or, that it was easy for them to smoke out to McDonalds and get a Big Mac whenever, if that’s what they wanted.  Dean watched Oryx and wondered that, why he didn’t just go get a Big Mac instead of eating that slimy stew.  Maybe he would have, if he didn’t have Dean’s eyes here, maybe that had been his nightly ritual for every single night of the last 100 years, for all Dean knew.  Maybe Dean could use his one sentence tomorrow to convince him to go get a Big Mac, tomorrow night.  Maybe Dean could convince him to take his eyes with him.  Maybe..._

_Oryx watched Dean's eyes back, from under the shadow of his cowl, as he ate, Dean could feel them pointed right at him, though he couldn't see them.  Oryx's head didn’t swivel to the left to the right, up, or down, like it might have if Oryx were just a person, eating a stew.  It stayed perfectly still, perfectly level, fixated on Dean._

_Dean wondered, again, what was under Oryx’s cowl.  A cloud of formless black smoke?  A horribly disfigured human face?  A face too beautiful to show, in Hell?  A skull?  The head of a dog?  The head of a bear?  The head of a bird, or his namesake, the long-horned oryx?  But Oryx’s  head did not move as he ate, and his cowl did not slip even the smallest amount, and Dean was no wiser, though he watched carefully, and could not do otherwise with all the make scraped from his eyes._

_When Oryx was done with his rancid meal he counted out a small pile of gold coins from another pouch on his belt.  Payment, from Alistair, for working on Dean? Or some other job done before he came to Dean in the morning?  Or some bet won from another demon?  Dean couldn't ask, his mouth was back on the rack._

_After counting the same pile twice, Oryx picked up one of the rocks in the fire circle, revealing a small hollow with other gold pieces hidden inside.  ‘And what else?’ Dean wondered, though he could not crane his neck or tilt his head to look._

_What that might aid his escape?  What that might enable another plan? What of this monster's sad hoard of meager riches?_

_Oryx put the rock back, when his new coins were stashed, and laid himself out on his mat to sleep, head rested at eye level with Dean, though he laid on his back and did not look at Dean's eyes once before closing his own, and crossing his arms over his chest, and going immediately into a stony sleep._

_He snored.  All night, while Dean tried to will his body to his eyes (failed), or at least will his eyes back to his body (failed), or at least roll them down the leather mat (failed), or at the very least get them to tear up (failed).  Dean’s eyes sat, impotent, straining, while Oryx snored the night away with his arms crossed over his chest._

 

_*_

_But in the morning, Oryx turned to look at Dean’s eyes.  It was no lighter in the Pit in the morning, the air was still heavy and smoky and dark, there was no special beauty to Dean's eyes then, more than what they by nature held.   But Oryx still looked out at Dean’s eyes from under his cowl for what felt like a long, long, time when he woke.  Five minutes, or more, though it is hard to judge time when you are only a pair of eyes, and cannot feel the beat of your heart._

_Then, slowly, like he was still only 51% sure he should do it even while he was doing it, Oryx reached up, and drew back his cowl._

_He was not a cloud of smoke.  He was not disfigured, or a dog, or a bear, or a crow, or an oryx._

_His face was just grey.  Wasted, and grey, and tired.  His hair thin and stringy and lank, his nose narrow and lips tight and pale.  His skin hanging from his bones like candle wax.  The whites of his eyes yellow, and the irises grey.  Not disfigured.  Not a monster.  Just grey._

_He kept looking at Dean, with his cowl pulled back, and his mouth open to breathe, like he couldn’t get enough oxygen from his nose.  Like just looking at Dean’s eyes when he could be seen himself affected him that much._

_Dean wanted to feel angry at him, now that he had a face to look at, he wanted to be enraged, at this face that cut apart his body and broke his bones and hurt him.  But… he just looked so... tired.  He just looked so grey.  And Dean could only feel sadness.  For for this creature, who had been human once, and had been reduced to this by the Pit.  This grey, sad, changeling who ate a slime for stew and slept on a leather mat by a black smoke fire and went to the racks and made pain, all day, every day, forever._

_Then he reached out, Oryx did, faster than he removed his cowl but still slower than he swung his cleaver, and picked up Dean’s eyes.  To put them back in his pouch, Dean thought, and back to the racks, and another day of being cut apart.  But no._

_Oryx ate them.  He put them in his mouth, and swallowed them right down whole, without chewing.  He ate Dean’s eyes, and stood up, and picked up his cleaver, and walked back to his rack, as if he were not carrying the most beautiful prize in all the Pit inside himself._

_He walked with his cowl down._

 

_*_

_“Dude, you ate my fucking eyes!”  That was Dean’s sentence for the day, he wasted it on that, he couldn’t help himself. He spit it out of his still blind body as soon as he heard Oryx arrive at his rack and set to honing his cleaver with Dean's eyes still gurgling in his stomach.  He had felt sorry for that guy.  For one second, he had felt sorry for Oryx's tired, sad, grey life of immortality and pain.  And then, Oryx  had_ **_eaten_ ** _his_ **_eyes_ ** _.  So fucking uncool.  Even for the fucking Pit of Hell._

_Dean’s eyes were in Oryx’s stomach right now.  And yeah, they hurt like a motherfucker in there with all that acid, but he was glad, he was glad, actually, because that meant that he wasn’t going to have to actually see all of Oryx’s small intestine and bowel or whatever the fuck because his eyes were going to get dissolved first._

_He convinced himself of that.  That he was glad his eyes were boiling away in the stomach of a demon._

_He could have said more, Oryx was slow with his tray that morning, almost, almost it seemed like he might be swaying while he worked, tapping his feet to a little tune that he almost might have been humming.  But Dean left it at that, at that one sentence.  He felt a little petulant, he thought he deserved it, and he didn’t say anything else._

 

_*_

_He had new eyes the next morning._

 

_But he was silent._

 

_*_

_“You should see them in the sun.”  That was his play, after a day of silence, after 48 hours to plan.  If the only thing Oryx wanted was his eyes, if that was the only lever that could move Oryx, then give Oryx his eyes, and let him be moved.  Offer them.  But offer them out in the world.  Offer them where there was no Alistair on his platform, no Pit Lords on their pedestals.  Offer them outside of Hell, where he might break free, or even just see the open sky._

_Oryx looked up, from his tray.  He was still wearing his cowl down around his neck._

_“It's just… Down here, it hurts so much.  You have to…” Do you really have to hurt me so much, Dean wondered, or do you like it? But he swallowed, and continued.  “Down here you have to… and it hurts.  Outside, up topside, they'd be… Brighter.”  Quieter.  “Better.”  Oryx still looking at him, instead of down at his scalpel on his tray.  “You could see them better, you could…  you can't really see them, down here.” Truth again for Oryx._

_Oryx nods his head:  yes, he understands.  He nods:  yes, Dean’s eyes would be so beautiful, in the sun.  And a feeling rises in Dean's stomach.  He doesn't recognize it, any more, but it rises._

_Then Oryx shakes his head.  No.  He turns back to his tray.  He will not take Dean out into the sun, today._

_*_

_“Can't, or won't,”  Dean asks the next morning.  Oryx knows what he means. He turns his head, slowly, and looks straight at Alistair, back to Dean, up at Alistair again.  It doesn't answer Dean's question:  it could be ‘can't’, Alistair has forbade him, or ‘won't’, he is too afraid of Alistair.  But it's clear at least that it's Alistair that is the reason; that without Alistair stalking his platform and tapping his two headed axe in his hands, Oryx would do this, for Dean.  Dean has earned that much, it seems, from this creature, in love, or lust, or respect, or guilt.  He has earned that much, for himself.  The admiration of a demon, who would take him out into the sun if he weren't so afraid of the Master._

_*_

_“OK, if not topside…. If you can't, or won't…”_

_Oryx looks at him, like he was waiting for it.  Like he had been hoping, that Dean would have a plan._

_“I know you have tattoo demons and armor demons and forge demons,”_

_Oryx nods._

_“Do you have like, painter demons?  Or illustrators?  You know, the ones scratching up all those old scrolls with fire?”  Dean has read those.  So many of those.  None of them told him how to save himself from this._

_Oryx nods again, more slowly._

_“Alistair is going to take me away from you.”_

_Oryx starts to shake his head but Dean interrupts._

_“He is.  He told me I'd be his, in the end.”_

_Oryx actually looks sad, and Dean takes him for a fool, then.  Did Oryx think that Alistair was going to let him keep Dean forever? Did he think that Dean would be with him freely, if he had any choice?_

_“And then what will you have?  Nothing.”_

_Oryx's hand reaches out for his cleaver._

_Dean shakes his head.  “You don't want that.  You don't really want that at all.  It's not a weapon anymore.  It's a chain.”  He wears chains every day.  He knows what they look like._

_Oryx slaps him then, for the first time ever, and sews his mouth shut for the day, and pulls the thread extra tight._

 

_*_

 

_“You could have something, instead of nothing, when Alistair takes me away.”  Dean says the next morning, and lets it hang there, in the hot air.  “You could have something, forever.”_

_Oryx's back stays turned to Dean and he takes a new posture, one Dean hasn't seen in their time together.  His hands clutch his tray and he leans down against them, straight armed, neck bowed, head bent.  He looks like he wants to swipe all his tools off his tray, and he is clutching the tray, clutching his anger inside to not let it go._

_“He's going to take me,” Dean says gently, trying to calm this demon who has chopped him apart like a steer at slaughter; trying to comfort him about the certainty of his own demise.  “And you can have something, then, or nothing.”_

_Oryx does sweep all his tools off his tray then, and turns around, and plucks out Dean's eyes, and swallows them down, and turns his back, and walks away._

_He leaves Dean hanging, blind, biting his lip against the pain.  He does not return that day._

 

_*_

_‘Let me give this to you,’ Dean planned to say when he heard Oryx return.  That was the sentence he planned to say the morning of his last day on Oryx's rack.  Not asking, not for mercy, not for escape, not for anything.  Offering himself. He was blind and sick with pain, and not even he knew if it was a real kindness he offered, or only a ruse._

_But when Oryx arrived he didn't stop at his tray and give Dean time to talk.  He walked right up to Dean, toe to toe, and Dean remained silent, waiting.  He wondered if maybe Oryx had gotten in trouble for eating his eyes and leaving him alone all day and had come to say goodbye.  Or eat his eyes one last time, or whatever other fucked up thing immortal demon torturers do on their last day on a rack._

_But Oryx did not speak, and there was silence, between he and Dean, until a key clicked in a lock, and Dean's hands, still chained to each other, were released from their tethers to his rack and re-fastened to a loop on Oryx's belt._

_Dean stood absolutely, completely, still, as leather creaked over leather and Oryx leaned down, and unchained Dean's ankles._

_And then, before he had time to shake out his feet, his hands were jerked out in front of him as Oryx began to walk away._

 

_*_

_Oryx walked him for a long time.  Long enough that the torn sockets of his eyes healed, and darkness became blurs, and blurs became torches, moving past, and Oryx's back, and the blade of his cleaver, constant, rising and falling as they walked._

_They twisted and turned, through the racks, they wound and weaved.  When Dean’s eyesight was clear again, he saw that they were following Alistair’s back.  Turning as he turned.  Keeping themselves in his shadow.  But also working towards a goal, not just going in circles.  Winding, weaving, towards a staircase cut in to the dome of the Pit, a staircase that looked like it led_ **_out_ ** _._

_When their long path finally led them to the base of the stairs, they paused, behind an empty rack, its bulk between them and Alistair._

_Dean's mouth is not sewn shut, not today, and he is about to ask what is happening, what the plan is, when Oryx removes a long, thin, glass tube from inside his leather jacket._

_It is filled with a red liquid.  It is glowing._

_“What--” Dean begins to ask, before Oryx silences him with a murderous glare and breaks the glass in half, two handed, with a hard crack._

_Nothing happens._

_Dean opens his mouth again._

_And then, on the opposite side of the domed Pit, a green flame shoots up high into the air, 30 feet, 40 feet.  The screams around it intensify.  It is followed shortly after by a yellow flame, not quite as high,and then another green._

_Alistair's head swivels._

_He is old.  He is Master.  He does not just run towards the flame.  His body follows his head as he swivels not just towards Oryx’s distraction, but a full 360 degrees, seeing everything, seeing all that happens on the racks._

_But he does not see *everything.*  Because there is a rack, high and thick, that hides Dean and Oryx from his gaze._

_And on Dean's rack, which he checks specifically before he acts, there is a ragged corpse with its hands and feet tied on with thick black thread and its head sewn on backwards.  Alistair sees it.  He nods to himself ‘Yes,OK.’  And he turns towards the new flames, and picks up one of his whips as he strides to the edge of his platform, and jumps off._

_He does not notice that it is the corpse of Asmodean, on Dean's rack.  He does not notice that Dean is gone._

 

_*_

_Alistair was distracted, by the fires._

_But so was Oryx, hands in fists around the two halves of his broken glass rod, watching Alistair with frightened eyes, waiting to see if his ruse was successful._

_And he was doing it for Dean; he had spent all of the gold under his rock for that rod of fire, he had spent all of his favors to overpower Asmodean and chain him to his rack.  He was doing it for Dean, beauty.  The only thing that mattered to him, any more._

_So he forgot that he and Dean were not a team.  He forgot that they were demon and victim.  He was distracted, and he was giving, and he forgot._

_Dean did not forget._

_While Alistair was distracted, while Oryx was distracted, he grabbed the hilt of Oryx's cleaver, right under the blade, right where it peaked over Oryx's shoulder.  He grabbed it, and pulled it free in one motion, and hit Oryx in the face with it when he spun around, stunned,_ **_betrayed._ **

_Oryx went down.  Dean stood over him, prisoner, freed.  For a moment, he remembered Oryx’s sad eyes, his tired, gray, face, and he hesitated, cleaver raised all the way over his head._

_But the cleaver comes down.  This is the guy who ate his fucking eyes._

_Oryx doesn't even raise his arms in defense.  Maybe this is what he wanted, really wanted, not escape for Dean, but for himself.  Or maybe this was not his plan, but now he finds himself happy to die if he gets to die looking in to Dean's eyes._

_Dean will never know, though he will sometimes wonder.  Sometimes, when he is not sure how much he should hate Oryx, or if he should even hate him at all.  It doesn't matter, in the moment.  This is the sonofabitch that age his fucking eyes,_

_Dean stood there for a moment, after, panting, blood on his face, hands still cuffed but now holding the demon Oryx’s cleaver.  Triumphal, mad._

_But he does not have time to be triumphal, or mad.  Not in this place.  He kneels and takes they keys for his cuffs out of the large pouch on Oryx’s belt (the only pouch left, now that sad, dead, Oryx spent all his gold to try to take Dean out into the sun)._

_He unlocks his hands.  He takes the haft of the cleaver in his left, and he runs.  Up the stairs, spiraling, he runs, as fast as he can, gasping for air.  Ready to kill whatever is on the other side of the door.  Ready do do anything._

_And at the top, when he reaches the landing, when he sees there are no more steps under his feet, only a door, and he looks up…_

_There is Alistair.  Bat wings flared and heaving.  A leer on his face.  “Oh pretty,” he reacts, to the horror that freezes on Dean’s face.  “You keep running to me.  Harder, and faster, you find new ways to run into my arms.  This time, I don’t think I’ll give you back.”_

 

_*****_

 

_Alistair threw him across the Pit.  Before he could even think about raising Oryx's cleaver.  Alistair the him from the top of the stairs, down to his own personal rack, the only one on his platform.  Not any more embellished than any of the others, only older, heavier._

_Dean slammed into it, and felt his bones crack instead of the ancient wood.  He realized, in that moment of pain, that his treatment had been gentle, before, though he didn't know it, but that it would not be any longer.  Oryx had been so clinical, only just cutting him, not taking any pleasure in Dean’s pain, only cutting him apart workmanlike every day and clocking out when the day was done.  Oryx did not relish it.  He was not cruel, he was not a brute._

_But Alistair was._

_There were no chains on Alistair’s rack, no leather cuffs, no corporeal restraints that Dean could cut free or escape from.  He was held there by magic, by the mandate:  Alistair wanted him to be held there, and he was held._

_He had been wearing the bloodied rags of the clothes the hellhounds dragged him down in; jeans, tshirt, overshirt, coat.  But they disappeared, from his sweating, panting, body, as he struggled against Alistair’s thrall, still overheated from his face up the stairs.  For a moment, cool air felt good on his heated skin, and then he was redressed in a style far more hateful than rags._

_On his legs appeared a new pair of pants:  brown leather, with a red ‘A’ embroidered on the hip._

_And then Alistair, in front of him, eyeing him.  Stepping too close, tracing Dean's hip and the new A there._

_“I told you, you’d be mine,” Alistair said, quietly, gaze held down, fixated on his mark of claim.  “And now you are.”  And he kissed Dean on his forehead, though Dean turned his head, and squeezed his eyes shut, and grimaced with lips drawn tight._

_It didn’t matter.  Alistair kissed him anyway, and smoothed his hair, and smiled a cold, sly, smile.  “Tomorrow.”  He said, and then he turned and walked away._

 

_*_

_Alistair did not cut his body parts off, not the next morning, not ever.  But he was worse than Oryx.  Much, much, worse.  Dean supposed there was a reason he was Master.  He supposed there was no way to be Master, but to be the very worst of all._

_He still supposed that, even when he became Master.  He supposed it all the more certainly._

_Alistair said that he loved Dean. ‘So beautiful,” he said, but he did not eat Dean’s eyes. He was not like Oryx.  He did not want to see Dean’s eyes shining on a sunny day.  He did not want to adore that beauty, and let it flourish.  He wanted to debase it.  He did not want anything besides pain.  That was all that he found beautiful._

_He made Dean very beautiful, for himself._

 

_*_

 

_711 days after Dean made his deal, he woke on Alistair’s rack.  His body was whole, his skin and clothing were clean, and his wrists and ankles did not chafe because he had been bound in the night only by magic._

_One year, in Hell, completed.  It didn't matter to him, he didn't even know, and even if he had it would have seemed unimportant to him, because he thought he was banished forever.  He woke, in one piece, unaware of the anniversary, and thought that maybe he had been wrong about his ungentle treatment.  He thought: ‘This isn't so bad.’_

_The last time he would think that for 39 years._

_Alistair came, and released Dean from his phantom hold, and his bare feet sank down to the planks of Alistair’s platform as he rubbed his wrists._

_Alistair watched him, and slid into his space.  He touched the red A on Dean's hip with one hand again and held Dean’s face with the other.  “Good morning pretty,” he whispered, and his breath was close and rank._

_Dean gulped and replied.  “‘Mornin’,” Trying to hide his disgust.  Trying to wait this out, see how long this easy treatment would last, and what it would cost._

_Alistair’s clawed thumb crept down and stroked Dean's lower lip._

_Dean began to leave his body.  Pretend he was watching what was happening to him from outside of himself, like he had with Oryx when his eyes were on the slab.  When he had convinced himself that it didn't hurt so much, that way._

_But Alistair slapped him, and brought him back.  “No, I don't think so, pretty.  I want you to be right here, with me,” and then he licked up Dean's neck, and bit his ear with pointed teeth.  The hand on Dean's neck slid down Dean's chest, towards the button of his pants, and stopped there._

_Alistair pulled back.  “Not yet.  Not yet.”  Scolding himself.  “You're not ready for that yet, are you pretty?”_

_Dean only clenched his jaw hard and blank in response._

_“No,” Alistair chuckled to himself. “Not ready for that yet, my sweet one.  But don't worry.  I'll get you ready.  I'll get you what you need, sweetheart.”_

_Alistair stepped back, a full pace, and gestured.  A pile of gold cushions appeared on the planks of the platform.  “If I leave you unbound, today, will you rest here and not cause any trouble for me?  Be good for me, and I’ll let you go free, here on the platform?  Tit for tat?”_

_Dean nodded, thinking Alistair was a fucking moron if he believed Dean was going to be anything_ **_but_ ** _trouble for him.  He was already looking around the platform, picking out weapons, imagining how he was going to jump over the edge and escape.  And Alistair wouldn't be there to catch him, this time, because Dean would be damned well sure his brains were bashed in before he took a single step off this platform again. That's what Dean was ready for, and there was nothing goddamned sweet about it._

_But he nodded._

_Alastair gestured again, at the pile, and Dean arranged himself.  Comfily, but with his back to the ground.  And his eyes never leaving Alistair’s._

_It was aggressive, the way he held Alistair’s gaze, but Alistair only chuckled again, and nodded, and said, “Make yourself comfortable, pretty.”_

_Dean crossed his arms behind his neck, and crossed his legs at the ankle, still not lowering his eyes.  Alistair smiled, and shook a finger at him like a sweet old grandfather pointing at an impish child, and said “I'll be watching you,” and turned out towards the racks._

_‘What a fucking idiot,’ Dean thought to himself.  This was going to be a piece of cake._

_There were knives all over the fucking place, on practically every surface.  There were the whips, of course, one on each corner of the platform; Alistair would grab the closest one if he hopped down to converse with a Pit Lord, or work a soul himself.  There were a couple of swords; two-handed, cruel blades with sinuous teeth.  There was Alistair's battle axe, two-headed, bloodied, a chunk of scalp and hair embedded in its upper curve._

_But none of these are what Dean wanted._

_He wanted the war hammer._

_It rested a few feet to his left, leaned up against the high back of a chair.  Almost like it had been forgotten._

_He was going to wait until Alistair walked past him, walked to his right and turned his back.  He was going to pick up that forgotten war hammer.  He was going to smash Alistair's fucking skull in, and spit on his broken face, and rip the A off his hip, and kill every demon pigfucker between him and the door out of the Pit that Oryx had tried to take him to, and if there were more demons on the other side he was going to kill them too, and keep killing, and killing, until he found his way out.  Door, portal, Stargate, fucking chimney, there had to be a way, Crowley and Ruby and Meg and Azazel all knew it, and if those shit heads could find it and use it then it just couldn't be that hard, could it?_

_This was his plan.  It was a red glazed plan that bubbled bloody over his eyes, and he should have known it couldn't be that easy, but he only saw red and he only felt the cold-sardine press of Alistair's lips against his forehead.._

_He leaned back in his pillows.  He waited._

_When Alistair walked past him, to his right, he leapt to his left and picked up the war hammer._

_He raised it above his head._

_He swung._

_And he expected to feel the impact of iron on skin and bone, and then the soft squish of hammer on brain._

_But he did not understand the mandate.  And so instead, he was surprised when he felt his own chest, slammed back against Alistair’s rack.  His arms lifted and pinned above his head.  His legs spread, and held._

_“Oh pretty,” Alistair said, behind him, sounding darkly amused.  “You don't have to try so hard to get my attention.”_

_And Dean felt one of the whips, then, it felt like the cat ‘o nines, it had many strands, it felt like it raised razors of fire in lines all across his back._

_“But now I have to punish you,” Alistair said, and whipped him again, and he was sure he was bleeding, and it hurt, and so he didn’t even notice that he was crying._

_He had not cried for Oryx, not ever, not even when Oryx ate his eyes.  Why did he cry now?  Because it hurt?  Not that, it was only a whipping, though a fierce one; he could have withstood it.  Because he failed?  Yes, the failure stung him.  The failure of this plan, of Oryx's plan; the failure of every plan that ended with him running into Alistair's arms.  Did he cry because of the way Alistair called him ‘Pretty?’  Yes, it made him feel weak, it made him feel minimized, it made him Pretty but not-Strong, not-Brave, not-Smart.  Did he cry because of all of these?  Yes, yes, but he was still red glazed, and he only felt the blood and the violence and not his reaction to it until the whipping ended._

_Not until Alistair stopped, and the pain settled to a thrum, and the blood only dripped down his back but his body was still shaking with tears.  Then, he recognized his crying.  Then, as Alistair kissed each line of fire on his back, and touched each with the tip of his tongue, and whispered, “Tomorrow, Beautiful.”_

_Then, when it was too late to have not done it while he was being whipped.  When it was too late for Alistair to have never seen it._

 

_*_

_The next morning when he woke, he bit his lip and wondered if the whipping he had received yesterday would continue, or if he would receive something worse.  But Alistair appeared and did not seem wroth, and smiled at him and offered him the same deal he had the day before; “Lay here, be good, and you can stay unbound.  Tit for tat.”_

_And Dean got it then, he understood, from Alistair's smile:  Alistair was_ **_not_ ** _a fool.  Alistair was playing with him.  Alistair wanted him to try to escape.  Alistair wanted to catch him.  Alistair wanted to punish him._

_Dean didn’t want to give Alistair what he wanted.  He didn’t want to participate in Alistair slamming him up against the rack and whipping him and kissing the welts and getting a sick thrill._

_But he didn’t want to be docile either.  He didn’t want to give up._

_He decided he would only pretend to be docile.  He would lay there on his cushions, and watch Alistair, watch his every single fucking move, he would watch him for days, for weeks, for_ **_years_ ** _if that is what it took until he could be sure, be really sure, that the next time he swung that hammer it would bash his fucking brains in._

_He laid there in his cushions all day, fake docile in his new plan.  Eyes on Alistair.  He let them be soft, he let his lips be parted, when Alistair looked back at him.  His eyes had been his weapons, before, with Oryx.  Even when they were eaten.  Let them be his weapons again, if they were all he had left._

_That evening Alistair came and scooped him up out of his repose with his bulging, bullish strength, and Dean did not resist.  Alistair pinned his body with his back up against the rack, spread open his legs, raised his hands up above his head and held him there like that, spread eagled with his red A on his hip.  He fingered Dean’s nipple and kissed him on the mouth and said “So good for me today, pretty,” and bit Dean’s lower lip, and rubbed Dean’s cock with his palm through his leather pants.  “Now I’m gonna make you feel so good,”_

_And Dean whined out a cry, and he wanted to yell out, “What?  NO!  Stop, no, you sick fuck, no, not in a million years, no!”  But he knew that that is what Alistair wanted, too.  And he found himself in the same trap, not wanting to be docile, but not wanting to give Alistair what he wanted._

_So he tried a middle way.  He narrowed his eyes and made his jaw hard, and he looked straight at Alistair, pretending that he was not afraid, and he said, “I will never want you.  I will never want this.  Not ever,” and then he turned his head away and closed his eyes, and clenched his teeth, and tried to leave his body, though he did it hard with Alistair's body heat invading his own._

_But if Alistair was disappointed that Dean didn’t fight him, he didn’t show it.  He only laughed, and said “Oh I know, pretty.  I know.  I wouldn't want you to want it,” and he squeezed and rubbed at Dean’s cock through his pants until Dean came, a sad, warm, dribble, accompanied by a choking noise._

_Alistair could have cleaned him up, but he didn’t.  He left Dean like that, crotch sticky with warm, unwanted come, hanging on a rack, tears welling up in his eyes again.  He turned his back and walked away and called back behind him: “Tomorrow.”_

 

_*_

_The next day Dean lay in his cushions again, and he waited until Alistair jumped off his platform to go see one of the Pit Lords.  He would not be docile again today, he would not, he could not, he knew it would cost him but he never wanted to be good for Alistair again.  So while Alistair conferred with the Pit Lords, while Dean was alone on the platform, he moved quickly, quietly, and snatched the knife that was closest to him; Alistair’s breakfast knife, off his breakfast plate.  He snatched it and he hid it in the leg of his pants, and he lay back on his cushions, and by the time Alistair returned an imp had taken away his breakfast plate, and so he thought that Alistair was none the wiser._

_When Alistair spread-eagled him that night, and unzipped his leather pants and stroked his gnarled, calloused hands in against Dean’s cock, Dean moaned, and when Alistair moaned back and bent his head and bit at Dean’s throat, Dean stabbed him in the heart.  He stabbed him as hard as he could, and he twisted the blade._

_Alistair staggered back, and looked at the blade, and then up at Dean.  His hands, just in Dean’s pants, gripped the knife and pulled it out, slowly, and dropped it at his side.  He smiled at Dean.  “Oh, pretty.  So fierce for me. So beautiful, my love.”  He shook his head sadly, then, though he was not truly sad.  “But you know you’ve been bad, right?  You know I have to punish you?”_

_Dean spit at him._

_Alistair nodded, like he expected that, and then he advanced on Dean, and spun him around, keeping his hands bound up above his head but releasing his ankles so that he could rotate Dean onto his chest and then bind his ankles again._

_Dean braced for the lick of the whip, but he didn’t get it._

_Alistair fisted Dean's hair and jerked his head back, and at the same moment forced a finger up inside him, claw first, bulging knuckles catching on his rim and burning him and hurting him.  Alistair crooked his finger inside, and his claw scratched at Dean and hurt him in his softest place.  He felt blood.  He felt it trickling down out of him and hurting him more where he was scratched, and he cried out, though he was ashamed to do so, and horrified when Alistair’s cock followed his cry to rub hard against his ass with an obscene grunt._

_Alistair fucked him like that, dry, two clawed fingers inside, rutting his bulging cock against Dean's ass until he came in poisonous spurts that globbed thick on Dean’s back and burned him like toxic slime, and he collapsed against Dean’s back in a damp heap._

_“Tomorrow,” he panted in Dean’s ear.  “I’ll make you feel so good.”_

 

_*_

_Dean did not sleep at all that night.  Hazy with pain, awareness trying to leave his body but being sucked back in by the hot, overwhelming humiliation, trying to plan, trying to just figure out what he could do to survive and keep even a little piece of himself._

_He did not want to be good for Alistair and be raped as a ‘reward’.  He did not want to resist Alistair and be raped as a punishment._

_He did not decide by the next morning, and spent the day in a daze in his cushions, and was left sticky with come again the next night after Alistair milked him dry while whispering “so good for me, beautiful,” in his ear._

_He hated himself, for not resisting._

 

_*_

 

_It went on like that.  Dean caught in a double bind where if he resisted Alistair, Alistair liked it, and if he appeased Alistair he felt ashamed and complicit in his own bondage._

_The punishments for resistance became more and more severe.  Brandings with ancient, ugly glyphs that writhed on his chest and did not heal.  Force feeding of poison that ate at his veins like fire ants trying to chew their way outside.  Roastings on a spit over hot coals that ended in being made a feast for the Pit Lords and their sharp teeth.  Rough, hard, rapes that made him hurt and feel dirty and shamed, a broken doll tossed away dirty and covered with come._

_So he began to appease Alistair more.  He didn’t want to, it must be understood, he didn’t want to.  He had so many plans, he bashed at Alistair’s skull with a hammer and stabbed him through the chest; he bit off Alistair’s tongue and his cock and he offered himself to the Pit Lords if only they would help him.  But the only plan, the only plan that ever had a chance of him surviving was appeasement._

_So, yes, he sucked Alistair’s cock on his knees, with his hands locked on his wrists behind his back.  Yes, he lay on his gold cushions and kept his mouth parted while Alistair and the Pit Lords came on his face._

_Yes, he took a whip to a soul in the Pit below him.  And then a knife.  And then pliers, a screwdriver, a rusty box cutter with a terrible click.  Tools that were meagre, but his own, just as Oryx’s cleaver had been.  He only hurt those souls just a little, and it saved him being hurt so, so, much.  His eyes were not black yet, but they were not green, any longer, and his heart was a guttering flame._

_He resisted Alistair for thirty years, he endured more than anyone else could have, he was so brave.  But he appeased Alistair for ten, even unto breaking the first Seal on Lucifer’s cage, and making Alistair the Champion of Hell._

_His resistance and appeasement became so intertwined that he stopped knowing when he was biding his time, trying to get Alistair to trust him so he could turn on him, and escape, and when he was just doing what Alistair told him to because he was numb and broken and it hurt less that way._

_That’s why he was out on the racks, when the Angel came._

  


_*****_

 

There was a blaze.

It was blinding.  

Like a star had come in to the Pit.  In one moment, a reckoning.  Shafts of light searing like spears.  

At its heart, a gleam of armor.  

Inside the armor-- the angel.  Too beautiful to behold.  Surrounded by so much light.  To look at him… blinding.  Agony.    

He filled the Pit.  He was everywhere, he was inescapable.  He was the final judgement of the Lord God.

The souls on the racks all turned to smoke, and screamed away.  

The demons working the racks were smote to ashes, and crumbled to their final place of rest in the depths.  They could not abide, in this beauty.  

The Pit Lords, on their pedestals, rushed the angel and were slain in the ecstasy of his light.  His sword like a river; effortless, swift and silver tipped.  He did not even seem to fight them, only end them.  Like they were _nothing_.   

Dean, numb, cold, broken, put his box cutter down on his slab and went to his knees.   _Now, it will be now_ , he thought.   _Finally,_ he thought.  To be ash would be to be free.  He welcomed it.  

Alistair, oldest, Master, roared like a bull and charged.  He pulled a mace out of the air as he ran towards the heart of the star.  It was black iron, and wickedly spiked.  He raised it two handed, to strike.  

Dean flinched.   _Don’t hurt him._ Panicking, thoughts so fast _Don’t hurt him.  You can’t hurt him, he’s so beautiful, there can’t be anything else that beautiful anywhere, anywhere, and you so cruel, and ugly in every way,_ and his hate for Alistair flared up in his numb heart, and he hoped that Alistair would be destroyed by this radiant one.  Annihilated, and turned back into the nothing that he was before his atoms were even carbon in the dust of space.    

He was so afraid.

Afraid that Alistair’s strike would land, that it would break through the light, break through to the angel and harm him and that Alistair would do to the angel what he had done to Dean.   _No,_ he thought.   _No, you can’t.  Not him.  Not that._ He would distract Alistair away.  He would be good, so good, if it meant that the angel would not be debased.  Anything could happen to Dean, he didn’t care, he was only numb flesh and dull eyes now, only a shell, like Oryx.  Anything to Dean, to spare the angel.  

 _He was so afraid_ .   

Afraid that not even this rupture of light and beauty could triumph, or even survive, in the face of Alistair’s swirling, ravenous, darkness.  Afraid that Alistair was the only God he was ever going to have, that there was no power, not even this, that could save him.  That he was ruined forever.    

His stomach clenched down painfully, fearful, ready for the long, mighty battle that he imagined was about to begin between Alistair, Master, and the light of Heaven.  He imagined strikes that would shake the ground; Alistair’s black mace, smoking, against the angel’s sword, on fire.  The angel gaining ground with skill, and speed, and then giving it back again in the face of Alistair’s bull strength.  Going on and on, circling around Alistair’s platform, until finally Alistair’s mace bashed in the angel’s head and his light went out.  Until all the light went out.

Dean wanted be ash, before then.  He wanted to be the dirt in the ground before he saw that light go out.  He wanted to forget that he ever existed, before that.        

But Alistair’s first strike never fell.  His mace froze in the corona of the angel’s light.  His hands, burned to its haft, started to smoke when its black iron turned white hot.  He fell to his knees, trying to shake his mace from his ruined hands, snarling up at the angel with pure hate in his eyes and black smoke leaking from the corners of his lips.  

The angel looked down at him.

Its eyes were blue.  So blue.  

It touched Alistair on the forehead.  Alistair tried to speak, and was silenced.

The angel opened its mouth.  Its voice… its voice was like a hurricane wind.  Dean heard it, where he was fallen on his knees, and he thought _That is a voice that could crumble the pillars that hold up the sky_ .  He thought _I hope I get to hear that voice again, before I die._  He thought _Anything, for that voice._

It asked Alistair a question.  Dean did not understand its language, but it was clear that it asked a question.  It was even clear what that question was, because Alistair snarled in reply:  “Fuck you.  Fuck YOU, and your cowardly Father.  You can't have him.  He’s MINE.  MINE.  I don’t care what the prophecy says. I don’t care, he’s MINE.”

Dean cringed.  He didn’t want to belong to Alistair.  His fingers picked nervously, unconsciously, at the A on his hip.  He hoped the angel knew that.  He hoped the angel knew that he would never, ever, want… this.

The one finger the angel had touched to Alistair’s forehead became its whole, gauntleted, hand, holding Alistair’s head like a crystal ball.  Worms of smoke started to seep from Alistair's head, bound with crackles of lightning that licked at his face like flames.

Alistair screamed.   

The angel repeated its question.  The ground shook.  It sounded angrier, this time, if it was possible for a hurricane to be angrier.  It sounded like it was used to being answered the first time.  It sounded like it thought that its contempt would be too good for Alistair.  

But Alistair’s want was hooked deeper inside him than the angel's contempt could ever hope to reach, and he only said again, _screamed_ , “He’s MINE,” before the lightning crawling over the surface of his face erupted and he turned to ash.  

Just like all the others.  No fight. Not a God.  Not even a shadow on the angel’s light.  Just another pile of ash.

And then…

And then….

The angel turned.

It was so quiet.  The most quiet it had ever been in the Pit.  No screams, no whips cracking.  So quiet, compared to one moment ago, when a hurricane had raged and shook the ground and lightning had struck and burned out the heart of darkness.  

And Dean was not afraid now, because no matter what this angel did to him, if it was death or even endless burning in that pure white light, he would be free.  Free of Alistair, forever.  Free of his guilt, and his shame.  

And if Castiel _had_ killed him then, had mistaken him for another of the wretched, he _would_ have been free, he _would_ have been free of his guilt and his shame, and he never would have become the First Knight; he never would have become the Master.  The angels of Heaven would have survived; the sky would not have fallen down upon the Earth.  The universe would not have _bent_.   

But Castiel had not come to kill him, no matter that he saw the blood on Dean’s chest and the box cutter on his slab.  That was not the Lord God’s judgement of Dean Winchester.  Castiel had not come to kill him.  Castiel had come to _raise_ him.  

It is so, so quiet, now, only two breathing, in the Pit, and the fires crackling.  The angel, shining, and Dean, on his knees.  Only the sound of armored boots on hard stones.  Getting louder, closer to Dean, Dean can hear it though his head is bowed and he doesn’t look up.  Getting louder, closer, until they arrive, gleaming, in his sight of the ground, and stop.   _Now I will be ash,_ he thinks.   _I am glad.  I am not afraid._

But he does not turn to ash.    

Instead, light assaults him.  Healing his cuts, his bruises, his burns.  Cleaning away the blood, and the grime.   _Warmth._ Warmth inside where it has been cold for so long, even in the roar of the fires. 

And then, that _voice_ .  Vibrating through him, _everywhere._ Not a question, this time.  Dean catches his own name, in the howling winds.   _Dean Winchester_.  

He turns.  He looks up.

He is blinded.  

He screams, when a hand touches his left shoulder, and he is burned.  

And then, that touch, it burns all the way through him, it burns through the part that is demon, it burns through the part that is broken, and he understands what the angel says next.  

_Be not afraid.  I have come, to protect you, my charge, to keep you safe from all harms.  To be the shield of Heaven, between you and the evils that claim you.  To be the sword of Heaven, and fight for your life at any cost._

_But first, and most important, to bear you up, and grip you tight, and raise you from Perdition._

 

_*****_

 

The hand does not leave Dean's shoulder after the angel speaks, and it burns still.

Through skin, and bone, and blood.  Through the guard around his heart.  

And when it reaches his heart…

“Castiel,” he whispers, and the Pit trembles.  

He knows the angel's name.  He doesn’t know how he knows it, but he knows it, and it feels like he always has.  It feels like the universe has put this name on his lips.  

He can barely talk, just this word, this name, only, while he burns.  This angel came for him.  This fierce purity, this wrath, this star of obliteration, these blue eyes.  For him, and only him.  All the others are ash.  Tears are falling from his eyes.  They are stars, too.      

“How?”

_How did you find me?_

_How can you be so bright?_

_How can someone so bright have come for me?_

_How do I know you?_

_How long, do we have?_

_How can I stay with you?  Anything, anything, to stay with you._

_How can there be anything, as beautiful as you?_

“Dean,” Castiel whispers, not thinking it strange that Dean knows his name.  Of course, Dean knows him.  Dean is his charge, fought for and killed for and healed by his light and touched by his grace.  But Dean's name is only a faint whisper when it leaves his lips, though he has come to the Pit in all his glory and vastness.   

His voice is like desert sand blown in the wind when he replies to Dean’s _How_.  Desert blown sand, one word.

“You.”

_You are the one I have come for._

_You are the one I was_ **_made_ ** _for._

_You are the reason I am not a star, any longer._

_You were so bright, I could see you from my solitary orbit._

_You were so bright, you made the fire inside me feel cold, and I had to come to you._

_You were so bright, even here, even covered in blood, even with your heart numb and turned to ice and hidden like a secret._

_You are the one that will save us all._

_You are the only one, that can save us all._

_You, the reason for everything, the answer to everything, You._

Castiel sees that his hand has burnt through Dean's skin, has left a mark there, is _hurting_ him, and he loosens his grip, to let go.

But Dean, star tears in his eyes, still on his knees, clutches Castiel’s gauntlet to him with both hands.  “It's not enough,” He begs, insensate, as his hands start to burn, too.   “Please.  It's not enough.”  Not after the ice, the numbness that had taken root in his heart.  He doesn't care that it burns.  He just doesn't want to be numb, anymore.  And he doesn't want to let go of the angel.

 _It could never be enough,_ Castiel thinks.  But he grips Dean tight.  He does not let go.

 

*****

 

They stay there, in the quiet Pit.  Unmoving, silent.  Castiel standing tall, the favor of Heaven shining around him, his hand on Dean's left shoulder, burning with a delicate blue flame.  And Dean, kneeling, crying his star tears and holding Castiel's hand in place with all the strength he has left.  

 _Is this real,_ he asks through his tears.  And _What are you,_ and _Why have you come,_ and _What will you do with me._

Castiel is silent, and only holds on to Dean, and stares into the blackness of the Pit with eyes hard as stone, searching, waiting.  They should be going, he knows, he should spread his wings, he should pick up his charge and hold him to his heart-- _he already wants to hold him to his heart--_ and they should fly away from here.  Far away.  There is a cabin, in North Dakota, that has the proper protection.  Or there is a bunker, in Kansas.  There are safe places still in the world, Castiel knows, places where he can protect his charge, and help him to heal.  And answer his questions, and hold him to his heart.

He should spread his wings.  He should leave this place, as fast as he can.  There are more demons, in the Pit, than Castiel has slain, and they will come, soon, another wave of smoke and teeth.  His garrison is decimated, retreating, they will not come to his aid if he is attacked again.  He should go.  But his charge… His charge is so weak, so broken, and he clutches Castiel's hand to him so desperately, so hard, even though it burns him, and Castiel has never felt like this before.  

Like he...wants.   He _wants_ to do something other than he was ordered-- _find Dean Winchester.  Raise him_ .  He… _wants_ to stay here, comfort his charge here, kneel down in front of him and take off his gauntlets and hold the back of his charge's head, where the hair looks so soft.  Part his own lips, and tip his own head down, and…

No.

_Yes._

...Take off his sword and release the power of the Father and be softer.  Take off his armor, and not be the shield, and let himself be touched.  For the first time, ever.  Touched by this man, this soul, his charge.  He… Wants to put his other hand under his charge’s chin and lift up his bowed head and kiss his tears away.  He wants to taste them.  He is the angel of tears, but he does not know what they taste like.  And that never seemed strange to him at all, until this moment.

And he wants…. To look into his charge's eyes.  Green as autumn leaves, he thinks they would be, if they were not so vacant, and afraid.  

Let a second wave of demons come, and a third, and a fourth, while he looks into those eyes.  He will slay them all.  

But he is an angel of the Lord.  His is the glory, and the power, and the kingdom, forever. But it is not his to want.  Only to obey.  

He raises his wings.  His charge gasps, when he sees them, black but glittering with silver, like the starry sky.  

“Do not be afraid,” He whispers into his charge's ear, as he holds him to his heart.   _You are beautiful.  “_ I will never let you be afraid again.”

He means this, when he says it, because he does not know the future.  He means it.  

He goes to North Dakota.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter depicts Dean's time in Hell. He is tortured graphically by multiple demons and raped by Alistair multiple times. 
> 
> If you would prefer not to read about that, and skip to the part where Castiel comes and rescues him, you can skip to where the long italicized section ends, or search for the start of the section where Castiel appears, which begins "There was a blaze."


	20. North Dakota

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He needs to know what it was that rose him up, from the Pit. He needs to know if it is something worse than what kept him bound there.

Chapter 20:  North Dakota  
  
_We are awakened with the axe_   
_Night of the Living Dead at last_   
_They have begun to shake the dirt_   
_Wiping their shoulders from the earth_   
_I know, I know the nations past_   
_I know, I know they rust at last_   
_They tremble with the nervous thought_ _  
Of having been, at last, forgot_

\-- They Are Night Zombies, They are Neighbors, Sufjan Stevens

 

\---Present---

 

“ _You saved me,” Dean whispers, tears in his eyes._

_“Yes.”_

_“You were the sun.”_

_“Only for you, Dean.”_

_“My angel,” Dean says.  He closes his eyes._

And he falls.

\---Past---

 

Dean opens his eyes.  Cold winter sun is streaming in through windows curtained with dingy yellow and orange plaid.  Dust hangs in the air in the shafts of sunlight.

He is in a hunter’s cabin.  An especially paranoid one, it seems.  Signs and symbols are painted high on every wall, but not neon spray paint jobs like what Dean and Sam do when they are squatting.  These are embossed in gold and silver, crimson red. They are permanent.

He is lying on a couch.  Plaid also, brown and green.  It is all unsprung and flattened, held together where the seams have split with duct tape, and the blanket pulled up to his chin is woolen and itchy and smells like sawdust, but it is the most comfortable he has been in 40 years.  

There is nothing between him and the door.  He stretches his hands, his ankles. There is nothing binding him.  He could run, he could…

But a splash of cold water hits his spine and he remembers what happens when he runs.   _Alistair._ Waiting for him.  Bat wings spread wide.  He will not run into Alistair’s arms.  He will not. Whatever is waiting here for him, he will let it find him, rather than run into Alistair’s arms again.

And deciding this, his eyes finally track to the coffee table next to him, finally allow him to see that someone is sitting there.

A man.  He wears a trenchcoat, and his tie is flipped over backwards.  No two strands of his hair point in the same direction. He is sitting compactly, knees and ankles tucked together, hands clasped on his knees, bowed over, but he also seems like he is only _just_ holding some terrible power inside of him.  Little silver stars bounce off of him like hail from a frozen sidewalk, and streaks of his face _blur_ and quiver like static on a television, in and out of existence.  

He is terrible, and beautiful, like the winter sea at dawn.

Dean swallows.

The man is looking down at his clasped hands, as if in prayer, and his lips are moving in silent words that don’t make the shapes of English.  

Dean watches him.  Silently. Wondering.  Is this the same being as that one, bright and shining, fierce, that descended into the Pit, for him?  He asked that creature _what will you do with me_ , cried it, but did not receive an answer.  Only the susurrus of wings and the swirl of stars and then the black.  And then waking up here.

 _What will you do, with me?_ Dean wonders again, as the man’s lips move in the quiet, long minutes.   _Will it hurt?_ It usually does.  No one ever comes for him, otherwise.

When the man finishes his prayer, he does not cross himself.  He only unclasps his hands and looks up, at Dean.

Dean inhales sharply.  His eyes. Those eyes… they are…  He remembers them. There could be no others, like these.  This is his salvation, then. This is the one that came for him, there can be no doubt.

The man’s eyes don’t look away when they should, when it would be polite, and they swallow Dean down, down, towards a fall.   _Dean_ could look away, but he doesn’t.  He chooses this, he thinks. He chooses to fall into these eyes.  He had not made a choice in a very long time, but he chooses this.  He would choose to fall into these eyes, forever. He has made worse choices, about what he will do with himself forever.  

He lets himself tip, forward into the fall, and loses his balance, though he is lain on his back.  His head starts to spin. Just from those eyes. Just looking at him, still looking at him, when they should have looked away by now.  But they do not look away, they look _into_ him.  Guilelessly, like they don't know it's wrong, looking into him as deep as they can, wide and dark and a little sad.  Looking in to him like it is _important_ like the fate of the world is behind his eyes.

He remembers these eyes flashing, looking down at him over a fiery sword, and he remembers the _voice_ \--the hurricane wind--and he remembers feeling warm, and safe, even in the Pit, even with every soul and demon screamed away and dead in ashes at his feet and he on his knees with this creature burning blinding bright and murderous above him.  

He wonders if he should feel safe now.  He wonders what happens next. What happens after the man is done looking into his eyes, if he ever is.  

No one ever wants Dean just to be nice to him, just to wrap him in blankets and let him nap on the couch in the dusty sunlight and look into his eyes.  No one. He is a soldier, or a savior, or a victim, or a prize, but never just and only wanted by anyone solely for himself. This creature may be beautiful, but he will want something, he would not have gone to so much trouble to save Dean from a fate so terrible unless he wanted something just as bad, or even worse.  Dean knows this. He does not expect any favors, from the universe. He knows that life is hard and unforgiving.

“Dean,” the man says, interrupting his thoughts, and that voice, it feels like it is still _inside_ Dean, rumbling through him everywhere, burning away the loose, frightened parts of him like dry tinder, like it did in the Pit, until he only feels steady, and calm.  

“What are you?”  Dean asks, breathless.  He tries to ask it bravely, like he is still a hunter, with a knife and a gun loaded with salt and a devil’s trap under his feet, but in truth he asks it reverently; he cannot help the reverence that creeps into his voice when he speaks to this unreal face, pale and carved of marble and too perfect to be real, to be talking to a person like Dean in a place like this.  

The man nods to himself:   _Yes.  Now I know what to do_ , and answers:  “Be not afraid. I have come, to protect you, my charge--” and he seems to be reading his words from a book that neither of them can see.

“I remember,” Dean whispers, still reverent, and he remembers the crunch of armored boots on stone, and the warmth in his skin as it stitched itself back together and his scars smoothed down to nothing.  “I remember.” His whisper turns into a choke. “You came for me.” _No one ever comes for me_ .  And then.   _I won’t be good for you_ .  And then _I won’t run into your arms._  And again _what are you going to do with me._ And again _will it hurt?_  He’s sure it will.  Those eyes are too fierce, the line of that jaw too sharp.  They are made for hurting.

He wants to look away, and stop falling, and regain his equilibrium, and his defiance, just for a moment, but he still cannot.  He still is tilting and spinning slowly, in a gentle fall. He cannot even catch his breath, with those eyes on him. _This can't be real,_ he thinks. _Alistair wouldn't give me to someone so…_ His hand jerks to his hip, to feel for the _A_ embroidered there.

But it is gone.

The man only seems confused that his speech has been interrupted, and continues reading out from his invisible book, like that is all he knows how to do.  “To be the shield of Heaven, between you and the evils that claim you. To be the sword of Heaven, and fight for your life--”

“I _remember_ ,” Dean interrupts again, choked voice overflowing.  “You were so beautiful. I’ve never seen anything that beautiful,” and he doesn't know why he even said it, said that, why _that_ would be what he would say _here,_ and _now_ , dead but risen again, pulled from Hell and from eternity and wrapped in a woolen blanket in he-doesn’t-know-where and watched over by a tax accountant in a trench coat.  But he is still falling and he can't catch his breath, or plan out his words or take them back after they are spoken. He can only fall.

“Were you real?”

The man tilts his head, and frowns.  “Do you think you are imagining me now?”

His lips stay just parted after he finishes speaking.

The air gets thick, between Dean and this man.  Heavy, as the man looks at him with his blue eyes and his parted lips and does not look away.  He does not seem to understand that, sometimes, you have to look away. Sometimes you have to let up, just for a second.  When power is rolling off of you in waves with intensity that feels like it could break stone, you have to look away. When the air crackles, like that, you have to.  

“Do you think you imagined me then?”  The man follows up, confused, worried, and somehow it seems he is much closer now, though he didn’t move.  He seems to be heating up the air Dean is breathing.

“What _are_ you,” Dean manages to ask again, because that is what a hunter would ask, and he remembers how to be a hunter, even if he has forgotten how to be warm or safe or brave or strong or anything else but afraid.  

“I am an angel of the Lord.”

“There’s no such thing as angels,” Dean says immediately, but it lacks conviction in the hot air; he says it as if he is saying “I’ve always been waiting for you, blue-eyes.”

The man just blinks at him.  Twice, slowly.

“Do you really believe that?”  

“There’s no such thing as angels,” Dean defends, stubbornly.   _And if there were, I wouldn't deserve one._

The man nods a little, and remains sitting. He doesn’t unfold himself at all, he stays hunched in and small.  But at the same time he explodes, tall and proud and spine straight, armored with plate polished like mirror, light radiant all around him, casting the shadow of black wings that reach across the entire back wall of the cabin.  

“I am the angel Castiel,” the man says, quietly, to his scuffed leather shoes, and “I am the angel Castiel,” the argent one says at the same time, voice ringing and shaking the glasses in the cabinets and shattering all the light bulbs.  “I am the sword. I am the shield. I am the anointed warrior of the Lord God.” He sits there, quietly, calmly, and at the same time he raises a great sword, and lightning flashes down from the sky to strike it, and when it is electrified with the power of the Host he stabs it down into the floor and rends the planks there wide, and says “I am the one, that will call your name when you step on the field, I am the herald of the end times.  I am the one that will make you mighty, and make the demon hordes fear your shadow. I will be the protector of your name, the keeper, the flag-bearer. You are God’s Chosen and I am your chosen angel.” He says this clear as a clarion and mumbles it, all as one, all at the same time. And when the twins are done speaking, rumpled man and warrior of Heaven, they become one again, and the light and shadowed wings recede from the room, where the glass from a dozen broken lightbulbs now lays scattered, covering the ruined plank floors.  

Dean cringes back into the couch, curled into a ball, whimpering.  It is too much, the angel in all his glory is too much: too bright, too loud, too sharp, too beautiful-- it overwhelms him.  And he cannot cope with it, because he does not remember awe, he only remembers how to be afraid, and the angel Castiel is fearsome.  “No. No. No. No.” He says, over and over, though his words are muffled by the blanket, and the couch cushions where he has pressed his face. Of course he doesn't deserve an angel.  After what he did, in the Pit? This one must be here to end him, no matter what he says. Words are nothing. Just like Dean. “No. No. No. No.” It is going to hurt, he knows that now, it...

“Dean,” Castiel says, and reaches out a hand, to touch his shoulder, and comfort him.  

But “Don’t touch me!” Dean growls, and jerks his shoulder away.  It’s too much, he doesn’t want, he won’t be good...

Castiel snatches his hand back, as if he had reached, foolish, into a piranha tank and been bitten.  “Never, Dean. Not ever,” he says, ashamed of himself and his presumption of touch, and his voice sounds sadder and smaller than it ever has before.  Not a hurricane. Just small, and sad, a wind through a hollow log in a cold forest. “Not ever, without your consent. I promise.”

And Castiel meant it, he meant this promise, he swore it still an angel, he swore it with an angel's grace.  And maybe he even swore it _too_ well, so much that it bound him in the future in times when he might have touched Dean, and comforted him, but did not, because he could not be sure.  Because Dean did not say “touch me, Cas,” or “hold me Cas,” or he said it with his eyes but not his words and that was not enough.

Castiel kept this promise to Dean, even if he kept it too long.  He kept it, because he broke his first one. He broke the promise he made when he said “I will never let you be afraid again.”  His first promise, to his charge, and broken almost immediately because of his vainglory, the beauty of the curve of his neck when he held his sword to the sky and looked up at it, towards the Father.  

Castiel has so much power, crackles with it, can barely contain it, power to fight for his charge, or flee with him, to heal him or make him strong, to remake the world for his earthly comfort or to show him worlds that he has never seen.  But he can’t… he cannot even touch him. That power is making him afraid. He cannot even help him to not be afraid. He cannot even keep that promise. Made too casually, he realizes now. Too easy that promise snuck from his mouth, for this man.

He knew it would be hard, having a charge so pivotal to the end times, he knew when he was sent for Dean what faced them.  He knew he would have to be brave, and cunning, and strong, and that many evils would come for them. He knew that he might be hurt, or cold, or afraid.  But he didn’t think it would be hard like this. He didn’t think that it would be heavy with small failures. He didn’t think he would want to hold Dean to his heart.  

“What can I do?”  He asks, trying to keep quiet, trying to hunch in on himself as much as he can, so that he will not make Dean afraid again.   _What can I do, if I can’t touch you? How can there be a world, when I can't touch you, beautiful._ “Please, Dean, tell me.”   _Anything, for you_.  “What can I do to help you?”  He doesn't know how to be anything else, but the perfect angel he showed Dean in his pride, on fire with the fury of the Lord.  But he has to learn. He has to learn fast, right now, what else he can be. For Dean.

He speaks softly under Dean’s ongoing groaning of “No.  No. No. No.” and so he is not sure, at first whether Dean has even heard him.  

But then he receives a reply.  From under Dean’s blanket, just barely slipped out between Dean’s mouth and the couch cushions.  “Leave,” a wretched plea. “Just leave me alone.”

And his charge has been through so much, has _suffered,_ and Castiel would gladly give him this, give him _anything,_ but it has been forbidden for Castiel to leave Dean during this time, during his healing, when he is weak.  “I can't do that, Dean,” Castiel says so sadly, his shoulders drooping more in his trenchcoat under the weight of his failure.   _How can it be this hard, already?  How can I want to give him so much, and be able to give him only so little?_

Dean lowers his head to his chest, and Castiel hears him sniff back a cry.   _Failure._ His charge, crying, inconsolable, afraid, and he only small and sad and far away.  Oath breaker. Not powerful. Not mighty. Nothing.

“I can't leave you by yourself.  It's too dangerous, I have to protect you.”  His endurance of this small failure is a tiny erosion, cold water on hard granite, of his duty to the Host, duty so old and so deep inside him that it is just as much a part of him as his bones. He does not know now that this erosion will eat all the way through him, one tiny grain of sand at a time, until it becomes complete and there is nothing of the pillar of certainty he now stands on remaining.  He does not know that Dean Winchester will wear and wear on him, until he has new blood, new bones, new duty, and the Host left far behind. He could not even imagine it, Castiel, the good soldier. But it will come to pass.

“Protect me from what?  Ain't nothin out there that can do any worse to me than already been done.”

And _No,_ Castiel thinks, _no I'm so sorry, but you're wrong, my beautiful, my heartbreak, you are wrong,_ imagining Michael taking over Dean's body and shredding his soul like a rain of knives, and it being the end of the world and Dean, trapped inside, world-ender, forever.  

He doesn't want to tell Dean about Lucifer.  He doesn't want to tell Dean about Michael. He doesn't want Dean to have to know that the Final Battle is coming, and will rest on his shoulders; that he may have to kill his brother or see him become the devil.  Dean may have been strong in the past, and he may be strong again in the future, but he is not strong now; now he cannot come out of his blanket, because he is afraid. This is the time of healing, not the time of hard truths.  Those will come later, sure as the sun sets, so Castiel will spare Dean of them now, while he still can.

But Castiel cannot lie.  He does not know how, yet.

“The angels…”  How to explain this.  “They would not treat you like Alistair, no, but they would… Hurt you in a different way.”

Dean is completely covered by his blanket now, even his head.  “No,” he whispers, as if there is someone else to whisper to under his blanket.  “No.” He doesn’t even know what that means, to be hurt in a different way, and he doesn’t want to.  He thought he knew all the ways, to be hurt. “No.”

Castiel pretends Dean is talking to him, just talking to him, not whispering to shadows hidden under his blanket.  “We don't have to talk about it. This is the time of healing. This is the time when I can still keep you safe. And I will Dean.  I swear it, I will, no harm will come to you while we remain here.”

_So many promises, for him.  Why?_

Castiel had thought about the ways he would honor his charge, before he began the Siege.  He had thought about the ways he would fight for him and empower him, the ways he would make him great, the gifts and blessings he would give, weapons and words of power.  He imagined himself with his angel blade flashing, wearing the tabard of Heaven. He imagined himself in the Final Battle, and how he would shine with the glory of the Father.  He imagined that Dean would kneel beside him, and they would pray for victory, and that before they rose he would sign an benediction over Dean’s head, to make him fast, and strong, and keep him safe.  

He had not thought that he would be standing in North Dakota talking to a blanket.  He had not thought that he would not be wanted. He had not thought there would be hurts that would befall his charge that he would not be able to heal.  He had imagined that he and Dean would clasp hands, before battle, or salute each other with their weapons. He did not imagine that he would want to hold Dean to his heart, or kiss his lips.  He did not even know that he could want those things.

But he is made of duty, and obedience, and he will find a way to keep Dean safe, as he has been bidden.  He will find a way to keep as many of his promises as he can. “What if… what if you stay under that blanket, and I stay out here, on the other side, and I don’t touch you, and you don’t have to see me, but I can see you, and I can keep you safe.  I’ll go… “ he takes six steps backwards, into a corner, where there is an armchair (more plaid, red and green with wide, cherry wood arms and feet) “I’ll just go over here,” he says, hoping Dean can hear that he is farther away. “I’ll just go over here and I’ll just stay here, and I’ll watch over you.”  

“No.”  Dean says.  “No. No. No.  No.” But he doesn’t seem to be talking to Castiel.  He seems like he has become so overwhelmed that he is only in his head, and in his head all he can say is “No.” He keeps repeating it, like a charm.  It gets slower, it gets quieter, and less distinct, the sounds blurring into and over each other, until he falls exhausted into sleep, and there is silence.

 

*****

Dean dreams about Alistair’s face.  His pointed teeth and black eyes and tongue sticking out.  His skin a pale green, like it was rotting. The oily strands of hair combed over his bald head; his bat wings.  

The face jeers at him without words, coming closer and going farther away.

But sometimes, interrupted by a flutter of black wings.

 

*****

 

Dean opens his eyes.  His heart is racing and his clothes are stuck to him with sweat.  He feels much too hot, inside his blanket. For a moment he thinks he is being roasted alive, but he fights until his blanket releases him, and cooler air soothes his skin, and he is able to see his surroundings again.

It is dark outside the cabin windows.  Country-dark, no lights anywhere, only the moon, and the stars.  But it is still lit golden inside the cabin, where Castiel is burning a kerosene lamp.  He’s not reading, or sleeping, he’s just sitting in his armchair on the other side of the room, staring at Dean, not blinking, like he hasn’t moved even an eyelid the whole time Dean has been asleep, like he probably lit the lamp just by thinking about it so he wouldn't have to look away from Dean.

Like he still hasn’t learned that sometimes you have to look away.  

 _Why doesn’t he look away?_ Dean wonders.   _What does he see?_ There is nothing, Dean knows.  Only a shell that is not quite filled with black smoke.  He is surprised that it does not collapse in on itself, this shell; it is so weak, and there is nothing but thin smoke to give it shape.

Dean tries not to move too much, to see if he can stare at Castiel for awhile before Castiel realizes he’s awake.   _What do_ **_I_ ** _see?_ Or _What am I trying to see?_ Or _What am I afraid of?_

But Castiel is watching him too closely.  “Hello, Dean,” he says. “Do you feel rested?”  like it is such an important question, and he asks it so solemnly into the quiet night, like he is a news anchor and Dean a dictator and Castiel is asking him when he will set his people free.

Because Castiel asks so seriously, Dean thinks about it before giving his answer.  Castiel didn’t touch him. Castiel stayed on the outside of the blanket. Castiel only watched over him, just like he said, he didn’t move, not closer, not farther away.  But Dean didn’t know any of those things would be true when he closed his eyes, and so he slept tense and wary, “No” still the chorus of his dreams even when his mouth stopped moving.  

“No,” he says, and Castiel’s face droops, like he cares about this, like he cares whether Dean slept well or not and that Dean didn’t sleep well when he was watching over him actually makes him sad.  Like Dean has just told him he will never let his people go.

“I could help you--” and he raises two fingers.

But:  “No!” Dean says again, and Castiel is afraid that the chain of “No”s will start up afresh, but now more exhausted, Dean’s eyes tired and red-rimmed as he chants “No,” to himself.  A worse chain of nos, a sadder, weaker one, because Castiel has failed his first promise. A chain of nos that deteriorates, into a terrible future, where Dean is too broken from his time in the Pit, and is lost.  And all is lost, with him.

Castiel knows that future is a possibility.  He knows that Dean may have suffered too much.  He has always known. Before the Siege, he knew it, and dismissed it, being certain that he would triumph.  But now he sees it, and is afraid. Not of what it would mean for the world. He does not care if the world burns, already he does not care about that.  He cares because of what it would mean for Dean. For what it would mean to his own heart, which he fears might now be stirring, at the worst time, of all times.

“Can I…. are you hungry?  Can I bring you something to eat?”  He has to find some way to make Dean say “Yes.”  Or, anything, besides “No.” He has to find a way to help Dean come back to him.  He has to avoid that terrible future. He has to keep his promises.

“No,” Dean says, though the mention of food makes his stomach growl.  He doesn’t know how to be hungry, any more, he thinks, or he shouldn’t.  He thinks it would hurt, to eat; his stomach grown shriveled and small and cut apart so many times.  He thinks that food would taste like ash, and burn through his veins like poison, since it is black smoke that pulses there, not blood.  He thinks about cutting himself open, to see it. To let the smoke just float away until he is empty, empty. His eyes hood over, and his right hand scratches lightly at his left wrist.  It would feel so good, to be empty. To just not feel anything at all.

But his stomach rumbles again, and Castiel’s eyes narrow.  “Dean,”

“No,” Dean repeats, and that should be all he should need to say, he should be able to just float, float, but his mouth keeps moving because nothing is holding it shut and Castiel is still _looking_ at him.

“They only gave me food that was drugged.”  He lowers his eyes, in shame, though the shame should not be his.  “If they wanted to...have me… without me fighting them. Like a… doll.”  The Pit Lords took him that way, force-feeding him Pit slime and then fucking him when his body had gone loose, and pliant, but his mind was still inside, saying “No.  No. No. No.”

Alistair never wanted him like that.  Alistair always wanted him to be able to say he didn't want it.  Alistair always wanted to be the force that subjugated him.

“I ended them,” Castiel growls, more stars leaping and spinning around him, his entire face blurring in and out.  “But I was in such a haste to get to you. I ended them _too quickly_.  I did not teach them what they should have learned.  I did not teach them the justice of the Lord; I did not teach them His judgement.  And now they will never know it.” He sounds like he regrets this, that these ones that hurt Dean went to their deaths so easily.  His body seems that it is only barely staying in place, only because he has been forbidden to leave; that otherwise he would go back even to the Pit, and find the ones that hurt Dean there, and raise them from the ash, and teach them more lessons.  

Dean shies away from the violence in Castiel’s voice, and Castiel tries to calm himself, so that he will not make Dean afraid again.  There is silence in the room as Castiel breathes until his vessel’s heart has stopped pounding angrily against his temples. Until he is calm and made of ice and stone again.  His voice is gentle when he finally speaks. “Maybe there is some way you could be convinced that the food I bring you is not drugged?”

“Would you… would you eat it with me?  Eat it first, I mean?” The Pit Lords never did that, never even tried to hide it, only slopped ladlefuls of slime on his face until he gagged on it and laughed at him.  

“I would, Dean, I would do that for you but…the amount of drug it would take to tranquilize you would not have any effect on me.”  

“I guess I’m not hungry, then,” Dean says, though his stomach growls again, betrays him again.   _Honest with me,_ he thinks.   _He didn’t have to tell me that.  He could have brought me anything, and eaten it, and I wouldn’t have known._ So he says “But thanks.”

Castiel nods, silently, still trying to think of a way to to make Dean say “Yes.” Trying to think of something he can offer Dean that Dean will accept, something that could not possibly harm him.  More than that. Something that would make him happy _.  Can there be anything?_ He wonders, _after what he has been through?  Or is this already over, Lucifer already won?_

Castiel will not _let_ it be over.  Not so easily, not only with a whimper.

“Can I sing you a song, Dean?”  He asks, his voice soft. Yes. He has been wanting to sing, all day as he watched Dean.  His fingers tapped, and it was hard to remain silent. Wanting to sing songs about the green that appears at the beginning of summer, and how it takes over all the cold, barren, trees.  Those are not usually his favorite songs; usually he prefers to sing to the stars, but today he wanted to sing songs about the spring in time with the breaths he watched form on Dean’s lips.  Today his favorite color is green.

“What, like Stairway to Heaven?” Dean asks, before he can help himself, before he can remember that he doesn’t know how to tell jokes, anymore.

Castiel frowns at him.  “There is no stairway to Heaven, Dean.  There are only a small number of interdimensional portals.”

And Dean almost laughs.  He feels a laugh, bubbling up inside him, but it can't quite coalesce out of the thin black smoke inside him, and it doesn’t make it to his mouth.   _Maybe next time,_ he thinks, as he feels it dissipate, back to nothing.  

“Ok,” he says instead.  “Yeah, OK. You can sing me a song.  You have a good voice?” He thinks there cannot be anything about this angel that is not beautiful.  He thinks, even, that Castiel's voice in song might be so beautiful that it undoes him. There is so much of pain inside him that he is only just hanging on to, held in and together by fraying threads of twine, and to hear something so beautiful might break them all apart.  

“I am considered adequate, amongst the angels.”  

 _Weird little guy,_ Dean thinks, but fondly, and tells him again, “OK.”

Castiel opens his mouth, and he does intend to sing about green shoots, that push up through the frozen Earth and bring the spring.  But instead he sings about how it feels to be a star. To be burning with cold fire and to be radiant with worship but to only see the black vacuum of space.  To be on fire, but to be cold. He sings about hanging alone, in the sky, for a thousand years, and melting the ice on the comets that burned by and then watching them hurtle past, and away, never giving thanks, never to return.  He sings about wondering what it would be like, for there to be anything closer than a million, billion miles away. Wondering what it would be like to have a planet of his own, or to crash into another star, and collide, and feel that heat, before being destroyed.  

His eyes do not leave Dean's once.

His voice is not only a voice.  It is a wave of air and heat and light.  It is pressure on Dean’s body and tingling on his skin.  It is thunder in the sky, and the anticipation of thunder.  The lightbulbs in the cabin are all already broken and now the wind howls through the grass outside, and the panes of glass in the windows rattle in their frames.  

It does undo Dean, the angel’s song of fire and ice and loneliness.  It unties all the thin knots of twine holding his pain inside, to think about this man, burning alone out in the dark, alone and cold and so beautiful it hurts.  It brings all his pain to the surface, drawn by Castiel's song like poison from a wound. He could not say where Castiel's pain ends and his own begins and it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter because the core of ice in his chest is melted and he can feel, again.  Something besides fear, or the crack of the whip and the slow trickle of blood after.

Tears are flowing freely down Dean's face, dampening his blanket, when Castiel sings his star to blackness, and abruptly closes his mouth.

“Was beautiful, Cas,” Dean says a long, silent, minute later, not hiding the shine of his tears.  “Thank you.”

Castiel is surprised with himself about what he just sang.  It was not what he intended, and it was so personal. He has not sung that song to Gabriel, or to Anael.  He has not sung it to anyone, only to himself, alone in the cold dark sky. But he sang it for Dean. _What is this power he has over me, that finds promises and songs in my heart and brings them out into the world?_

And no one… No one has ever called him ‘Cas,’ before.  He has always been ‘Castiel’ to the Father, to Michael and Naomi and Uriel and Zachariah.  ‘Baby bro,’ or ‘brosef,’ or even more incomprehensible things to Gabriel. ‘Cassie’ to Balthazar.  But never just ‘Cas.’ Not ever. He likes it. He wants to hear it on Dean’s lips again. He wants to hear it on Dean’s lips when they are touching his skin.  He didn't know that was something he could want, but he wants it.

He thinks of something else he can give to Dean.    

 _“_ Do you know your name?”  he asks quietly.

“Dean Winchester,” Dean says, though he knows Castiel knows this, or at least the ‘Dean’ part, has called him that already.  He wonders if Castiel thinks he is so broken that he doesn't remember his own name, and he thinks that he probably looks that way, tears streaming down his face, hiding under his blanket.  He pushes it down, for a second, to wipe the back of his hand against his face and brush the tears away, though new ones take their place, echoing against the memory of Castiel’s song.

“No,” and Castiel shakes his head, the most he has moved since Dean woke.  “No, that's not your name. Not your _real_ name.”

“Pretty sure it is, Cas,” Dean says, and he _is_ sure; he forgot what sunlight looks like on water and he forgot how ice cold lemonade tastes in his mouth and he forgot what it feels like to want to be touched, but he never forgot his name.

Castiel shivers, from hearing _Cas,_ on Dean's lips again.  He hopes his trenchcoat hides it.  He wonders how many times Dean will have to say it, before it doesn’t make him shiver.  “No, no, that’s your name, but it’s not your _true_ name.  Not what they call you in Heaven, or in the stars.  Do you want to know your true name, Dean?”

Dean thinks about it.  He’s not sure. What if it’s something terrible?  What if it’s one of the names that the demons called him, or Alistair.  What if it is _Pretty_?  

“Will it hurt?”  He asks. That’s the only way he knows how to ask.  That’s the only way he knows how to think, any more.  He has forgotten all the others. Castiel said that the angels could hurt him in other ways… is this one of them?  Do they call him by a name that is cruel? Do they call him _weak,_ or _foolish,_ or _demon toy?_   

“Oh, no, Dean.  No.” Castiel’s eyes seem to become rounder, warmer, when he answers.  “I wouldn’t offer it if….. No.” He manages to just stop himself from saying _I would never hurt you._

“Ok, then.”   _Why do you believe him?  You shouldn’t believe him.  You shouldn’t believe anyone.  You shouldn’t remember how._

“In Heaven, where they speak the world-tongue, they call you _Who the Darkness Fears._ That is your true name.”

 _Bullshit_ .  Dean doesn’t believe it, not a word of it. _Knew you shouldn’t have trusted him.  Knew you couldn’t_ . But also _Why would he lie, about a thing like that?_ “Got news for you Cas.  The darkness doesn't give a shit about me.  They sure as fuck don't fear me.” _They whipped the skin from my bones and fucked me blind and I stopped even trying to stop them._

"They _do,_ ” Castiel says, and some of the light behind his eyes flashes.  “They _will.”_ His right hand makes a fist, before he smoothes it.  He tries to make his voice calmer when he continues. “You will be the only thing they fear.  You will be the only one that can stop them.”

“No,” Dean says.  “No.”

“I wouldn’t lie to you, Dean.”   _Another promise. “_ I know your name.  I know what is coming.  The darkness will fear you.  Only you.”

“They don’t fear me, Cas.  They _own_ me.  I made a deal--”

“And I un-made it.”

“You--”

“I **un-made it** .”  The earth shakes under the cabin; Castiel’s choir makes it shake, when he says this.   “The power was given to me, to take your soul as my own, belonging to none else, and I did.  I crossed guard with the Fiend and slew him and I spoke your name and I healed you with my grace and I set a seal upon your arm and a seal upon my heart.  I am the sword. I am the shield. I have heard your name called in the halls of Heaven. I have the true sight and I see far. And I have seen it: _they will fear you._ ”  

“OK, Cas.  OK,” Dean says, as the earth still rumbles, not because he believes Castiel, but to pacify him, because he doesn’t want him to draw his sword and release his wings and make lightning strike in the cabin again.  He doesn’t want to have to be afraid of Castiel, again, but his eyes are flashing flash-flash-flash-flash and his choir is making the earth shake and Dean’s heart is racing in his chest and he just wants everything to slow down, slow down, and not be so serious.  He's not ready for this. He's not ready for anything. He wishes Cas had sung him Stairway to Heaven instead. Not something so beautiful. Not something like this.

Castiel can hear the beat of Dean’s heart.  He can hear that it is beating too fast. He can see Dean’s fingers turned white on the hem of his blanket.  He releases the grace that he had drawn into him, and tries to become small, again.

He doesn't know how to talk about anything besides revelation.  He thought that was all he would have to talk about, on Earth. The only thing that would matter.  But he sees he cannot talk about it now. He sees again that he will have to learn a new way, if he is going to save Dean.  

His eyes catch on Dean's fingers, bloodless white against the rough grey weave of his blanket.  Why has Castiel allowed that blanket to endure? It affronts him, suddenly. Nothing so coarse should touch Dean's skin.  Dean should have… Softness, only and always.

“I could make you a softer blanket,” Castiel says, thoughtfully, almost more to himself than to Dean. “I could make you a better one than that, at least.”  

His eyes are so hopeful, when they look at Dean.  So hopeful because he has thought of this, so hopeful that Dean will accept this kindness.  “OK, Cas,” Dean says, into that hopefulness, and lets himself swallow. He feels himself tipping, again.  Because he is afraid, he knows. Afraid that Castiel will make him a blanket of knives, or of sand that covers his mouth and nose and destroys his eyes if he tries to open them.  He is afraid, but he says yes anyways. He is afraid, but he says yes to Castiel, again, as when he let Castiel tell him his name. _Why_ , and _you shouldn’t_ still there, but quieter this time.  

Castiel nods, only a small fraction, and the blanket wrapped around Dean transforms.  It becomes a quilt, silk, midnight blue, puffed with eiderdown and edged with thread of silver.  It is the softest fabric Dean has ever touched. It holds in his warmth, without suffocating him, or making him too hot.  Dean tenses, and waits for it to burn him or strangle around him, but it doesn't.

“Thanks, Cas,” He says, and Castiel nods again.  He wants to say more but everything he wants to say feels like too much, too pathetic.   _Thanks for not hurting me.  Thanks for not looking away.  Thanks for singing me a song._

“Will you rest again now?” Castiel asks.

Dean yawns.  “Yeah. I'm pretty… Yeah.”  Wrapped in his angel quilt, remembering what comfort feels like, the weight of 40 years without it starts to settle on him.  It is very, very heavy. He thinks he might never wake up. He starts to struggle against that, against a deep black forever sleep, but then he hears Castiel:

“I'll watch over you.”

And it makes his heart easy, though it shouldn't, though he knows he should guard his heart more carefully than that.

Castiel turns off his lamp.  And Dean was right. He does it with his mind, so he doesn't have to look away.

 

*****

Dean dreams of Alistair's face, again.

But it is farther away.  Far enough away that it looks small.  And his teeth don’t look so sharp, they look like they are rotting away.  And though he moves his mouth in a sneer that taunts, Dean cannot hear it, and though he flaps his bat wings they are falling apart, only thin strips of flesh hanging from frames of bone.

There are stronger wings, that beat, holding Dean and raising him up, and away.  Stronger and darker, and all full of stars.

 

_*****_

Dean opens his eyes to the sound of his stomach growling.  He's not too hot this time. He doesn't feel bound by imaginary chains.  He’s just wrapped in a light warmth that smells like the pine of the hunter’s cabin, sliced with something more exotic, just a hint, of ozone.  

It's morning now, at least one night gone by, and Castiel looks like he still hasn't moved, sitting straight backed with both feet on the floor and both palms flat against the cherry armrests of his recliner.  Dean wonders if he ever gets uncomfortable, or if he is made of stone.

“There is a patch of blackberries in the bend of the stream that flows around this cabin,” Castiel says, instead of ‘Good morning, Dean.’

“So?” _Weird little guy._

_-But he's not he's not a little guy at all he's a star he’s-_

“We could walk out to them.  You could pick them from the vine.  You could eat them, like that. So you wouldn't have to be afraid I had tampered with them.”  Has Castiel been thinking about this all night? How to find food, that Dean could feel safe to eat? How did he know, where there are blackberries?

“You could have messed with them, while I slept,” Dean says, but he doesn't really believe it.  He doesn't believe Castiel even closed his eyes while he kept watch, let alone left his chair, left the cabin.  And why would he? Why not just turn Dean to ash, with all the others? Why not pick up a piece of broken glass from the floor and use it to slash into Dean’s softest parts, instead of cleaning it all away in the night (there is no glass on the floor, now).  Castiel doesn't seem amused by this situation, by Dean’s fear, he doesn’t have some cat eyed gleam in his eyes like he is playing with Dean and when they get to the blackberries they will be eyeballs. He doesn't seem amused at all. He seems like the most serious man who ever lived and this the most serious circumstance.  He seems like they are at the end of the world.

Castiel cocks his head, and narrows his eyes.  “Do you really believe that?”

 _Is he reading my mind?_ “I'd be stupid not to,” Dean says, not answering the question.  

The look on Castiel's face softens, and his eyes open wide again.  They look so sad, that Dean has had to learn to think like this, to suspect poison in every kindness.  “Oh, Dean. I'm so sorr--”

“Don't need you to be sorry,” Dean cuts him off, gruffly.  That would be too much. With everything else the angel has done for him… It would be too much.  He is teetering, only just teetering, holding on with the skin of his teeth on this side of irreversibly breaking apart, and he cannot carry the weight of the angel's sorrow, which he can tell is vast.  So vast, behind those dark eyes. Part of what makes them beautiful.

Castiel’s mouth clips closed, and he seems to chew on that.  “Ok,” he says, the sorrow being replaced on his face with his standard blank stoicism.  “Ok.” Then he stands up. “Let's walk out to the creek. It's a little chilly outside, keep the blanket.”

The weight of sorrow on Dean lifts, and he claws his way one fingernail width back into this world.

 

*****

The walk to the creek is long, and silent.

 

*****

When they arrive, Castiel stands back and lets Dean advance the last few yards to the blackberry bushes.  

Dean looks at the berries.  They're small and shriveled, not ripe yet, looks like they  bloomed too soon and froze in the mountain cold. They probably will taste bitter, Dean thinks, absently feeling a leaf between his fingers.  It's furry, and brittle. It falls apart and drifts to the ground like snowflakes, as Dean touches it.

He's glad that the berries are frozen and sad.  He doesn't think he could eat them if they were huge and ripe and sweet.  They would intimidate him too much, they would be too _alive._ But he thinks he can try them, just like this.

He twists one off the vine, careful not to crush it between his fingers.  The vine doesn't pop or crack or glow or do anything weird, like it might, if it were bespelled.  He knows that doesn’t really mean anything, but he lets himself pretend that it does. Castiel is still and silent behind him.

He puts the fruit in his mouth.  His mouth, he realizes then, tastes like death, and the flavor of the frozen berry isn't enough to break through the decay.  He chews it, tasteless, and swallows joylessly. He wipes the back of his hand across his mouth. “My mouth tastes like death,”  he tells Castiel, still standing behind him. The first words he has said on this outing. Why hadn't he noticed the taste of his mouth before?  How long has it tasted like this?

“You could wash it in the stream,” Castiel says, not moving any closer, sounding sad.

_(Because this is another small failure, eroding against him.  He healed Dean's mouth, of the burns and cuts there, but he didn't think to heal him of the taste of death.)_

“Would you accept toothpaste, or mouthwash?”  Castiel asks.

“No,” Dean says, because he can only imagine that they would burn, and kneels at the side of the river.  He only eats five more blackberries before they leave, and he doesn't take any with him. His stomach feels like it is full of lead.

 

*****

“Why did you stop being a star?” Dean asks on the walk back.  Stars don't have to eat bitter berries or brush their teeth or watch over broken men in cold mountains.  

“Because I saw you,” Castiel says.  

“That's not possible,” Dean replies.  He's not educated, but he knows that. He knows how far away the stars are.

“Is that what you believe?” Castiel says beside him.  It sounds like his eyebrows are raised as he says it, but Dean can't turn his head to look.

They walk on in silence for awhile.

 

*****

“Which one is really you?” Dean asks next, surprising himself when he breaks the silence again.  A fog has risen up, on the mountain.

“What do you mean?” Castiel replies, furrowing his brow.

“I mean like, which one is really you?  The tax accountant, or the holy badass, or the lonely star?”

“Oh,” Castiel says, and his brow smoothes.  “None of those.” He does not reveal any more information.

They walk in silence for several paces.  Dean chews a stick he picked up, from the stream.  It is dead, but it tastes alive. Compared to his mouth, at least.  “Ok, then, if none of those, what? What _are you,_ really?”  If he doesn't know what it is, he can't kill it.  He remembers that.

“It would be hard to describe it, hard for you to imagine it,” Castiel says, and just stops, like there is nothing more to say.  Like he doesn't understand that Dean is asking him to _try_ and describe it.  

 _Or like he doesn't want me to know_ , Dean worries, suddenly afraid.  Is Castiel hiding his true form because it is terrible?  Frightening? Chaotic? Does Castiel's true form have long teeth that drip with venom?  Bone claws made for slashing the souls of the unfaithful? Is it hard to imagine because he is nothing more than a cloud of evil?  Is it hard to describe because it has so many clockwork parts, each sharper and more cruel than the last? Dean imagines a hundred terrible forms from the Pit and tries to imagine how they could become worse, _beyond_ his imagining, and he starts to taste the blood copper taste of panic on the back of his tongue, stronger than the dead sick or the taste of death.

And why, Dean wonders now, why did Cas walk him all the way out here?  Really, for five blackberries? And why did Dean comply? He should have known that no one would do this for him, so he could eat though afraid of poison.  He should have _known,_ he should have _fought._   If Castiel kills him now, no one will ever find the body, it will just mulch and decompost and turn into leaves. It is so big out here, so open, and the weight of all the trees and sky crush him, crush his windpipe so he can't breathe.  It’s too open. There is too much space. Anything could see him here, could get him… his fingers twitch down for the A that is no longer on his hip.

Why was he good for Cas?  He didn't have to be, he could've stayed under his blanket, he could've at least made Cas _force_ him, if he was going to be walked out into the woods to his death.  Just because Castiel gave him a blanket, just because Castiel sang him a song, God, he's such a _stupid whore,_ spreading his legs for _anyone_ , he should have at least made Castiel _drag_ him, kicking and screaming, out to his death.

And how will Castiel do it? How will Castiel murder him? Stab him with that sword, that one that broke the floor of the cabin, and take his head?  Turn him to ash, like all the other demons, his soul screaming away into nothingness? Or will he just snap Dean's neck? Will he say some fucked up prayer, before he does it, and make Dean not just a victim, but an _offering?_ Is _that_ what this is about?  Is that the answer he still hasn't received from Castiel, to _what will you do with me?_

The air presses down all around Dean and the fog suffocates him.  His heart is a pounding drum in his chest and it speeds, playing a march that is too fast, too fast.  He shouldn't have eaten those berries, or drank that water, or chewed that stick, he shouldn't have… They are poison, they must be, that's the way Castiel is going to do it, make Dean do it _to himself_ and he's so fucking stupid he did it, ate the poison that killed him and Castiel didn't even have to lift a finger.  “No… No… No…” he starts to chant, as if that word can hold off the poison, and he wraps his arms around his chest.

Dean starts to feel nauseas, and then dizzy, and within three steps he is down on his knees.  The air is so heavy. Being alive, is so heavy. He has forgotten how to breathe. He has forgotten how to walk.  He has forgotten how to eat anything that isn't poison. He has forgotten how not to be afraid.

“Dean!” He thinks he hears Castiel call, from far away, as the fog seeps into his head.   He hears leaves crunching beneath him, when his body hits the ground.

 

*****

Dean dreams a fever dream.  His body is too hot. His blood is too hot.  Poison, he has been poisoned, and it is burning him from the inside out.  Alistair gives him a bucket of ice chips but when they slide down his throat they turn into liquid fire and burn him even more.  Alistair kisses him, and his tongue inside Dean’s mouth raises infected blisters that are even hotter still. He touches Dean’s skin and it burns from the outside in.

Where are those black wings, and their cold stars?  Were they ever here? Is this heat upon heat upon heat real and those wings and their stars only a dream?  They must have been a dream. His life is only this. Only this, forever. He hears Alistair laughing, laughing, as the poison reaches his heart and he dies.  He is glad to die. It means he will have a moment of full black before he is brought back to life again.

 

_*****_

Dean opens his eyes and sits up, gasping, heart racing, warding his face from Alistair’s infected kiss with his arms.  His clothes are damp. His blanket has been taken away from him, but a fire is now lit in a small fireplace opposite the couch.  The warmth of it feels good, against his face. He can see that his blanket is hung near the fireplace, probably to dry. It is smudged with dirt, and decomposed leaves.  It shames him, that he soiled something so perfect, something given to him. _Stupid.  Stupid whore._

“Dean,” Castiel says behind him, back in his armchair.  His voice sounds two grades rougher than it did on their walk.  Dean turns to him, missing the warmth of the fire on his face immediately, but comforted again when it begins to warm his back.   

Castiel's hands have obviously been in his hair, pulling it even more wild, but they are now rested, palms down again, on his armrests, fingers clenching over the edges.  He has black circles under his eyes. “What happened?”

The warmth of the fire drains away from Dean in a heartbeat. He remembers the nausea.  He remembers the pain. He remembers… Oh God…

His heart pounding, he rolls over towards the fire and heaves.  Nothing comes up from his stomach but a thin, yellow, bile, and the taste of death.   _Must have already horked up the berries then,_ he thinks, closing his eyes and heaving again, unable to stop even though he has nothing left in his stomach.  He is choking on it.

“Dean, please let me help you,”  Castiel begs, desperate behind him.  

“No!” Dean shouts, though weakly.   _Don’t hurt me._ “No!  Stay back, just… Don't touch me, please,” The thought of being touched throwing ice water on him, making him wonder whether he will be too weak to even heave, again.  

“Please,” Castiel begs again, and he sounds so sad.  “How can I help.”

His head spins.  Why would Castiel want to help him, if he poisoned him?  Castiel wouldn't poison him, if it would make him so sad.  Castiel wouldn't be so sad, if he poisoned him. Castiel gave him a blanket.  Castiel hasn't moved from his chair. Castiel isn't laughing at him while he wretches.  

A terrible, unimaginable thought comes to Dean, then.  Could Castiel help, if Dean could remember how to ask him?  Or would Castiel give him a bucket of ice that would burn him?

 _No,_ he thinks, _no, it's not possible._ But he thinks this terrible thought anyway.  He can't help himself. Castiel is the reason… Somehow....  Just sitting in that goddamned chair all goddamned night long.

 _And you were safe.  All night. While he sat in that chair._ **_Because_ ** _he sat in that chair._

“Which one is really you?”  He asks again, now a terrible, hopeful whisper.   _Can you help me?  Are you real? An angel? Or are you only blood and teeth._

“Dean, I told you--”

“Is it,” Dean heaves a little bit, so scared, “Is it because there’s something wrong with you?  Something that would make me afraid of you?” His voice grows small “Something that would make me not want to do what you want me to do?” He doesn't know what that is yet, but he is sure Castiel wants something from him.  There is no reason he would have rescued him, otherwise.

Castiel’s voice sounds grim when he answers.  “Is that why you...Is that what made you panic?  Because you’re afraid, of me?” _Failing him again.  Refusing him. Making him so afraid._ The ledger of his failures to Dean has already become so long, and in such a short time, and when all he was supposed to do was keep him safe.  The failures come so much faster than he can redeem them. They are making him feel like his control is slipping away. He has never felt that before.  

“Should I be?”  Dean’s stomach and throat clench closed, too tight, it hurts.   _He didn't answer the question._

“No.  No, Dean.”  He believes that it is true.

“I don’t know what you are,” Dean says, shakily, like maybe he doesn’t believe that Castiel is telling him the truth, because he doesn’t know what Castiel is made of-- light or smoke or stars or lies.

“I’m an angel of the lord,” Castiel says, simply.  That always used to be enough.

“I don’t know what that means,” Dean says, because he doesn’t.  He has never seen an angel before, has never even heard of one, and that means that an angel could be made of red eyes and black smoke just like every other fucked up thing that he has to stalk after.  That means an angel could be even worse.

“It means… duty.  To the Father, to the Host… but right now, to you.”  

“Cas--”

“To you.  Right now, only to you.  To keep you safe. To help you heal.”  He drops his head, and looks at his fingers, where they weave together in his lap.  “I am failing.”

He sounds like he has never failed, before.  

“Cas.”

 _“_ I’m failing you, and I don’t know… I don’t know how to be better.” his voice sounds like it is about to break.  

“Just tell me,” Dean says.  “Just tell me, please. That’s all.  Just so I can know. Even if I don’t understand.  Even if I can’t imagine.” Something heavy and tall feels stuck inside Dean.  He needs to know. He needs to know what it was that rose him up, from the Pit.  He needs to know if it is something worse than what kept him bound there.

Castiel takes a deep breath. “Ok,” he says.  “Ok.” And he pauses to think.

“None of them, really,” he says, finally.  “Not this form or the armored one or the star.  Though I suppose it is most like that one.”

“OK,” Dean says, and rolls all the way over on the couch so he can look at Castiel without straining his neck.

“It's like that one but instead of being one star, I am a billion stars.  Our maybe more than that, maybe a countless number. Infinite.”

“Ok.  So, a lot of stars.  I've seen the sky, Cas, this is not a hard concept.”

Castiel nods, and continues.  “But they're not all _here,_ the stars, not all in this space where my body is.  They are everywhere. In all of space and all of time.  They...resonate.”

“Ok,” _that is a little harder to understand, “_ so are they like… Here?  Now?”

“Yes, Dean.  They are everywhere always.”

“Filling up this room?  Are they, like, passing through _me?”_ and he looks down at himself, as if all of a sudden he will be able to see stars there.

Castiel smiles, just barely.  “Yes, Dean. Filling up the room.  All around and through you. Becoming plaid and emerald, the longer I stay.”

The plaid is obvious, but “Emerald?”

Castiel looks away.  The first time he has.  The first time, in all of this.  “Like your eyes.” His voice much quieter.

“They ate my eyes,” Dean says, bluntly, unasked.  He doesn't know why he says it. He doesn't think about it first.  But he says it.

Castiel clutches his hands to his armrests again, and closes his eyes.  “I killed them too quickly.” He says it like “I'm sorry.”

“No, you didn't,” Dean stammers.  “Or, yes, but no.” Castiel's eyes open, and look at him with a question.  “It was only one of them. That did that, I mean. The demon Oryx. He's the only one that… Did that.  To me.”

Castiel blinks several times in rapid succession, like he is trying to remember something.  Then he slumps in his chair, like the sword has been removed from his spine. “I didn't kill that one at all.  Oryx. No. He was not on the racks, when I came for you. I'm sorr--”

“Don't need you to be sorry,” Dean says for the second time, though now for a different reason.  “I got him. Oryx. With his own cleaver. The one he… Used… On me.”

“Good.” Castiel says, and his ferocity is real, and Dean hears it all the way in his heart.  It is so much better than “I'm sorry.”

Dean doesn't want to talk about this any more.  As suddenly as he brought Oryx up, and with as little reflection, he now wants to leave him behind.

“Can I see you, Cas?  All your… Stars, or whatever?  Can I see them?”

“Yes, Dean,” Castiel says immediately.  Finally, a request he does not have to refuse, and he will grant it.  He was not forbidden to show Dean his true form, and there is no law against it…. Though he knows Uriel will not approve.  Uriel will not think that a human ape is deserving. Uriel will not think this necessary to accomplish this part of the mission:  “Heal him. Make him ready. Keep him safe.”

Uriel may punish him.  Or, worse, send him back to the garrison, to Naomi.  

He does not care.  Another grit of sand erodes against his duty to Heaven.  In the future, three drops of blood smoke in a fire and the universe _bends._

 _“_ Yes, but...we will have to go outside.”

“Why?”

“My true form will not fit inside this cabin.  It will not fit inside this earth.”

Dean fists his hands, and releases them.  “So we'll have to go….”

“Elsewhere, “ Castiel finishes for him. “Only if you allow it.  It will not take long. Less time than the walk to the berries. And I will keep you safe.”

“OK, Cas,” Dean says, and he shouldn't.  He remembers how to be a hunter, he remembers that.  He shouldn't let this creature he doesn't know what take him off he doesn't know where and just believe that he will be kept safe.  But he does. For some reason

_His eyes his voice the way he sat in that chair the way he's sorry he didn't get Oryx for me the way he's sorry about everything but doesn't make me talk about it the way he's quiet the way he watches over me the way he walked me to those berries the way he pulled his hair; because he was lightning because he broke the earth because he made me a blanket that was so soft because he never laughed because he is so serious because he sang to me because it was beautiful_

he does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dean still has a lot to remember, my poor summer son. :'''''''(
> 
> On tumblr I am brainheartpizza (https://www.tumblr.com/blog/brainheartpizza).


	21. Dean Winchester is Saved

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He knows that there are strings that can be cut, inside him, to make him agree to anything. He knows what he did in the Pit. He knows how much of it he said no to. He knows what it took, to make him stop saying no. He finds that he is not that surprised, that the angels are no better than the demons, when it comes down to that.

Chapter 21:  Dean Winchester is Saved

  
_where the master finally sleeps_  
_in the lap of his lover_  
_subdued in all his rage_  
_and he aglow with the taste_  
_of the demons driven out_  
_and happily replaced_  
_with the presence of real love_ _  
the only one who saves_

\--Dance With You, Live

[adapted]

 

\---Past---

 

They stand facing each other in the wet leaves at the base of the cabin steps: Dean and Castiel.  

Castiel's hair and trenchcoat rustle in the breeze that rustles too in the limbs of the forest trees.  He squints, though it is dim in the fog on the mountain.

Dean’s head is bowed, before himself.  As though he may get to see Castiel's stars, bigger than the whole world can contain, or he may be murdered here in the fog, and he is resigned equally to either fate.  

When Castiel came for him, blazing, in the Pit, he swore to himself that if he only got to hear Castiel's voice again before he died, that it would be enough.  He has heard that voice now, even in song, and he tries to tell himself that it is enough (he lies to himself. It is not enough. It could never be enough. Not after hearing _that_ song).  For many years in the Pit, he tells himself, he thought he would not even get that much, only blood and ignominy forever.  He tells himself (lies), it will be enough, if he dies now, having heard that song. He allows his resignation to lay heavy over him, like a wool blanket drenched with lukewarm water.  Holding him down. Keeping his heart from fluttering away with hope.

“We will go to an… Empty place,” Castiel says, voice almost lost in the wind.  “But it will be empty only for a moment. Then I will fill it, with… myself.”

Dean doesn't answer.  He does not even open his lips.  

“Do you understand, Dean?”

“No,” Dean says, and then looks up at Castiel.  “But it doesn't matter.” He pauses after he says this, eyes defiant, holding Castiel’s, and though his gaze pretends to be brave it is also tired, and when Castiel's eyes shade softer and he opens his mouth to object-- _it does.  It does matter, Dean--_ he decides that that answer is not enough.

He speaks slowly, words dampened and softened into molasses by the fog.  “I want to know. Gotta see what you are. That's what matters, right now.”   _What are you, Cas?  What will you do with me?_

Castiel nods, and his words are flat and soft in the fog too: “If you find you want to return, you need only say it.  We will return.”

Dean nods too, mirroring Castiel.  “I want to see you,” he repeats, and he reaches out, suddenly, like he has to finish doing it before he thinks about it, and clasps a hand to Castiel's shoulder.  “Let's go,” he says, and mutters, “Before I lose all my damn nerve.”

Castiel closes his eyes and lowers his head.  “Yes, Dean.”

And they are gone.

 

*****

The empty place reminds Dean of the Construct, in The Matrix.  It is white, forever, no shadow, in every direction.

As Castiel said, only for a moment.  And then it begins to… fill.

The bright white fades away to a navy so dark it is almost black.  The dark of the night sky. And then, just when the darkness is uniform, and all the brightness has faded away:  lights. Tiny lights. _Stars_ .  Lighting up the night.  So many. Many, upon many.  Dean understands then what Castiel meant when he said _uncountable._ He meant this, this great number, this riot of lights that go on and on and on without end.  Inumerable great swirls, each a galaxy, some so far away they are small like snails, some so close they roar with heat.  Each one spinning, expanding and contracting, slow and sinuous or fast like a pinwheel firework. And Dean understands then, also, what Castiel meant when he said that he _resonates_.  The stars, they are not only in this one moment in time:  Dean sees them also in the moment just before this one, and the moment just after.  He sees himself this way too, floating, repeating forever as if he were standing between two funhouse mirrors.  

 _Castiel_ “Castiel,” _Castiel_ , he says, voice echoing into forever.

The stars, every one, freeze for a moment when he speaks, and move towards him, even the ones that are impossibly far away, even if they move only a fraction.  Like they are each an eye turning to look upon him.

 _They do see me._ He realizes.   _Even the ones that are so far away._

_Castiel wasn’t lying, even about that._

_It should be impossible._

_It isn’t._

_Castiel_ “Castiel,” _Castiel,_ he echoes again, and it is too much, the infinite repetition of time and all the stars in the universe looking at him and the impact of a truth he thought was a lie all attacking his brain, all at the same time.  

His stomach reels, and he falls through cold, empty, space.

 _Dean_ “Dean” _Dean._ The answering voice is so deep.  It comes from _everywhere,_ and it is inside of him, too, _resonating_ .  “Do you wish to return?”   _Return.  Return._ Voice a thunderspark, touching him on every surface of his skin, every hidden place inside.  Rumbling, making his skin come alive like the finest grade of sandpaper drawn over it. Like fingernails scratching exactly over his veins.  

He falls, and he spins like the stars around him, and his blood rushes in his ears and his body feels like it is a tuning fork that has been struck and every star is vibrating every cell at a different frequency.  His stomach lifts, and falls, lifts, and falls, and he gags on it. And then that _voice_ .   _Everywhere.  Castiel._

It is too much.  He vomits. He thinks for a moment he will come, as well, overwhelmed in every way ( _that voice.  INSIDE HIM._ ) but he does not.  He emits only a thin trace of yellow bile, and it floats out away from his mouth, floats by him in space.  He stares at it and watches it go. That bile is the only thing he can see, in what looks like all the universe, that does not expand and contract, spin and _resonate._ One strand of yellow bile.  Only here, only now. He focuses on it.  It is ordinary. It is an emblem of a short, hard, ugly life that the rest of the universe does not care about, or even see.  It grounds him. He remembers _this_ .  He _is_ this.  The rotten bile floating through the dark between the lights of the universe.  

He does not want to go back to the cabin, yet, he is able to decide to answer Castiel, with his eyes locked on his bile.  He wants to master this strangeness. He wants to master _himself_ .  He wants to feel strong, at least strong enough to experience this, though it overwhelms and awes him.  He used to be able to stand, in the force of the overwhelming and aweing. He knows that he did, he can see himself in his memories, so many times, standing tall against towering evils, though he doesn't remember _how_ .  He wants to remember how.  He doesn’t want to be defeated, _again._ Not by this. Not by… beauty.

“No, Cas.  Wanna… stay here.” _here, here._  “But all this…” he wipes the back of his hand across his mouth.  “‘S too much. Where are you? Wanna see you.” _Where, where, where?_

 _Just wanna look at you.  Just wanna be able to talk to you, without all the spinning, angel._ “Angel,” he hears, and thinks maybe he said all of that out loud in another past, or another future.  

The stars all jar, when he realizes this, for one second like the blackness is glass and it has shattered.  Dean heaves again, and the force starts to rotate him, head over feet, as the stars right themselves from their breaking.

 _“_ You do see me,” Castiel answers, from inside of him.  “Everywhere.” _Everywhere_. Rumbling.  His voice like a rapids and Dean the stones it rushes over, thundering, frothing, constant, roaring in his ears.  “I am the light in your eyes. I am the air that you breathe. I am the cool on your skin.”

“‘S TOO MUCH, Cas,”   _Cas, Cas._ Dean chokes, spinning, falling, vibrating, his stomach heaving emptily, Castiel’s voice roaring in through his ears, pounding in his blood.   _“_ ...Help me.”   _help me.  Help me._

The star clusters all zoom towards Dean, all at once, faster than light, pinpoints zooming into long, bright lines.  But “too much,” _too much_ , Dean pants out, and they all freeze, and dim, almost back to darkness.

“Cas?”   _Cas, Cas.  Where are you, angel?  Don’t go dark, because of me.  Please, not because of me._

 _Here_ “Here” _here,_ Castiel says, and two eyes appear, directly in front of Dean.  They are not dark. They _flash_.  They are each as tall as Dean’s whole body, and they are the brightest blue in this universe.  They look like they know all there is to know in the world, so much. They look like they are pained by all the hurt in the world, so much.  All-seeing. All-knowing. All-feeling. God-like.

Castiel.  God-like.

His eyes stay steady, right in front of Dean, as he spins and floats away.  No matter how he rotates, they stay in front of him, motionless.

It only helps a little, like staring at one spot on the floor during the tilt-a-whirl.  

“Too much spinning,” _spinning, spinning_ Dean grits out.  

Castiel’s god-eyes squint, the same as the squint on the mountaintop.  “May I stop your spinning, Dean?” He sounds so careful, tentative. The tentative god; the sad one.

_I promised I wouldn’t touch you, unless you asked me to._

“Touch you, touch you,” echoes in from another future.  

Dean does not answer immediately, and the stars freeze and dim again, while they wait for his answer (they are sad because they think he will say no).  

“What happens if I say ‘No’?”  

“Then you will continue to spin.”

“And if I say ‘Return’?”

“Then we will return.”  

Castiel answers so directly, and in this place the answer is the air, written in the stars, vibrating through Dean’s body.  Castiel could not lie to him, in this place, Dean thinks. He would see it in the stars. He would feel it in his cells. Castiel could do almost anything to Dean here-- wrap him in cold fire or scream until his ears burst or make him disappear with not only a pop left behind when the air rushes back in to fill the vacant space.  He could do _almost_ anything, but he could not lie.  If Dean says _No,_ he will not be touched.  If Dean says _Return_ , they will return to the mountain.  

Understanding this, knowing this, _because_ of this, Dean says, into the dim, frozen, stars “Yeah, OK Cas.  Yes.” _Yes, yes, yes--_ and immediately the stars brighten, and flow into motion again, and his nauseating rotation slows down, down, like he has made contact with an infinite pillow and is falling into that instead of through the air, slowly, and more slowly, and more slowly, until he is not moving at all.

Still, Castiel’s god-eyes hover stationary in front of him.  They blink once, lids made of stars, lashes long and dark and made out of shadow and bright jewels.    

The pillow that has caught Dean is… not made of stars.  He looks down at it, and sees that he rests in black feather-down that wraps all around him.  One of Castiel’s wings, he realizes, recognizes it from the cabin, though he sees too that it goes on for hundreds of feet above him and below him now, and that the other, just as high, faces him across a narrow gap of space.  Castiel’s eyes, still unmoving in front of him, are embedded one in the middle of each wing. Like those moths whose backs look like the eyes of an owl.

“Your eyes are in the middle of your wings?”   _Wings?  Wings?_ Those eyes… they… hold him, somehow.  As sure as Castiel’s wings do. There were no eyes in Castiel’s wings the last time Dean saw them.  He is certain of it. He would have noticed eyes like these. Even if Castiel’s wings only flashed in one second of lightning.  He remembers every filament of their construction. He remembers perfectly.

“No” _no, no,_ Castiel replies, and his eyes leap up to sit above his wings, like they would if they were in a head and it was sitting on a pair of shoulders and the wings were sprouted from there.  “They were only... “ he pauses as if he has to think about the right word for a very long time. Like he is so ancient that he has forgotten this language and needs to remember it, before he can speak.  “ _Tracking_ you.  As you fell.”   _Fell.  Fell._

Another Castiel echoes in “ _Always watching you,_ ” but this-Castiel-here does not acknowledge it.  He only angles his wing where it cups Dean, so that Dean is reclined and tilted up and can still see his eyes.  

And Dean is... still, finally.  Just still, pillowed in the stars, weightless, safe.  He had forgotten this feeling. He did not remember that this stillness of body and mind was possible, he has been always too hot, always striving, planning, always afraid, trembling, thrashing, his mind always circling itself, jittery, constantly panicking or numb from pain and heartache-- for too long.  He wants to remember this feeling, this safety, and he wants to remember this the moment that he felt it again in his second life, and that he felt it with Castiel. He wants to hold this stillness in his mind until it is set down there to keep. He has not wanted to make a new memory since before the hell hounds dragged him down, but he wants this one.  He wants to keep this still moment next to his heart, like a shiny jewel, and pull it out the next time he feels like the meager bile of the universe.

He breathes, deeply.  Becalmed in Castiel’s wing, he doesn’t look at the stars, as they spin and shine.  He doesn’t look at his funhouse-self, echoing into infinity. He only looks into Castiel’s eyes where they flash with lightning strikes above him.    

 _Beautiful_ “Beautiful,” _Beautiful_ he says, reclined in the softness of Castiel’s wing.   _Angel_ “Angel,” _Angel_.   He remembers what beauty is.  He remembers that things can be beautiful, instead of at best only functional, or not-sharp, or not-burning.

Castiel blinks again.  “May I continue to hold you in my wing, Dean?”   _Wing, Dean, Wing, Dean_ Castiel asks very seriously.  He has stopped Dean's falling, and that was all Dean asked of him.  But he… He wants Dean to allow him to prolong this touch. He thinks that if Dean says ‘No,’ and Castiel releases him back into the stars, he will feel very… Empty.  No matter how long he has abided in this form alone through the ages. Maybe he was empty then, too.

He hopes that Dean will say ‘Yes’.    _Yes_ , hold me.   _Yes_ , touch me.   _Yes_ , be my comfort.

He thinks that he will not tell Uriel that he has brought Dean here, when he makes his next report.  He thinks that he will hide this moment, from the Host. He will keep it only in his memory, only for himself, held next to his heart.  He thinks this when withholding would have felt impossible, _been_ impossible, one day prior.  But he wants this to be his own, only his, this moment with Dean.  

“What happens if I say ‘No’?”

The stars dim.  The corners of Castiel’s star-lids tilt down.  “Then I will release you.”

Dean wants the stars to come alive again.  “Don’t let go.” _Don’t let go.  Don’t let go._

 _Never “_ Never, Dean,” _never,_ Castiel says, through the release of held breath.  His wings come together to cradle Dean, and raise him to the level where Castiel’s giant heart should be.  “Never.”

A cloud of stars turns red, then goes black, with a hiss of smoke.  “Always,” echoes through the star-filled place.

Dean remembers what it is like to feel safe.  He had forgotten it, for such a very long time.

 

*****

“So, this is you?” _you, you, Castiel._

 _Yes,_ “Yes,” _yes_ .  “Are you still afraid?” _Afraid, afraid._

 _No,_ “No,” _no._ He’s not.  He should be, he knows that, he should be afraid, here so helpless, in the grip of such power.  He should not remember how to be anything else but afraid. But… he’s not. Dean may never have felt as safe as he does right now, in this weird, beautiful place, wrapped up in these terrible, beautiful wings and looking into the eyes of a God.  

“You can rest here, if you would like,” Castiel says.  “It is permitted.” _Permitted, permitted_ .  He doesn’t really know if it is permitted or not.  This rule, this point of minutia, of what he is and isn’t allowed and what the protocol is for every possible interaction he might have with his charge--it doesn’t matter to him. He will provide this rest for his charge-beautiful-hero.  He knows that this is right, even if it is not permitted. He can see that this, this is how the futures with the ruined Deans finally start to fade away. For the first time, since the siege, those futures are darkening. Castiel sees them disappear, with pride.  “I will turn to emerald, all around you, if you do.” _Emerald, emerald._

 _“Like my eyes,”_ echoes in Dean’s voice, and “ _They ate my eyes,”_ and _“the demon Oryx.”_

He wonders if Castiel only means the nearby stars will turn to an emerald shade, or if he will wake up encased in emerald like Sleeping Beauty.  He wonders, if the stars turn emerald, will they be seen that way on Earth? He wonders, how Castiel would free him, if he woke all entombed inside an emerald stone?  

 _With a kiss?_ He wonders, and falls asleep, imagining it, light lips against his own.  He remembers what it is, to want someone to kiss him. He remembers, and he wants it to be Castiel.  

 

*****

For many cycles of sleep wake sleep wake sleep wake Dean rests in the hollow of Castiel’s wings.

In the first sleep cycle, Dean dreams light dreams at first, of Castiel kissing his lips.  Glancing kisses that barely touch, sweet but not sticky. Warm, but not hot, not too hot, he is not ready for that.  He dreams of Castiel’s lips and Castiel’s voice though he cannot see Castiel’s body and his own body doesn’t seem to matter either; is just floating, is just made of light.  He dreams of only lips on his and Castiel saying his name, “Dean,” again and again, in that _voice_ .  In that way he says Dean’s name like it is _so important_.  Like it is the fate of the world.  He dreams that it could last forever, this light, sweet getting in his heart like strawberry lemonade.  

And Castiel knows.  Dean is there, held resting in the hollow of his wing in a place filled with only himself, and he knows of what Dean dreams.  Castiel knows. He _knows_ , that Dean dreams of kissing his lips.   

From the very first time, he knows.  From the moment this desire is formed in Dean's heart, it is no secret between them.  Castiel _knows._

But he does not touch his wings to Dean's forehead, in a kiss.  He does not wrap Dean up deeper in his wing, covering all of his body and reeling him close, much as he wants to protect every inch of Dean’s skin from the cold of space, much as he wants to touch as much of Dean with as much of himself as he can.  He does not wrap Dean up, because he was not given permission for that, and he promised.

 

*****

“Why is it you?” Dean asks, when he wakes.  

“What do you mean?”

“Aren’t there, I dunno, a lot of angels?  ‘Ve heard of a lot of ‘em, Gabriel and Michael, Raphael, fuckin’, I dunno, Uriel?  That dick Azrael, with the plagues, ‘n shit? Why’s it you? Instead of any of them?”

“I used to think…” Castiel's lights dim a little, and he is silent for so long that Dean thinks he won’t answer.  That’s ok, with Dean. Castiel doesn’t owe him anything. Castiel doesn’t have to answer him, anything. Castiel doesn't insist that he talk, when he doesn't want to.

But Castiel does answer.   “I used to think that it was because I was the purest, the fiercest, the most dutiful,” he is not boastful when he says this, somehow he is humble even while giving his own praise.  “I thought it as we prepared for the Siege-- my brothers did not seem _worthy--_ and I thought it during the Siege-- I was so _powerful_ then, with light.”

“Yeah, you were, Cas,” Dean says in a soft voice.  

“But now I think…” and he pauses again.  Dean lets him, again.

“Now I think I was made for you.”  He feels Dean’s body recoil, against his wing, and he continues.  “I think that _you_ are the one that is fierce.  But you are… lopsided, in a way.  You will… fall over, if there is no one there to brace you.  And I… I fit into all of your cracks. I was made in the shape of you.”

Dean remembers Castiel saying “Good,” instead of “I’m sorry” when he learned that Dean killed Oryx.  He remembers Castiel ending Alistair with a single stroke. He remembers Castiel giving him a _choice_ \-- Say return, if he wants to return, hear his name, but only if he wants to hear it, be held, but only if he wants to be held.  He remembers Castiel watching over him. He remembers feeling safe.

He looks up into those eyes, that flash.  And he _feels_ Castiel fitting into all of the empty places within him.  He feels himself become _more_.  

“Yeah.  Yeah, Cas.  Maybe.”

The god-eyes blink.  “I thought I would be the one to call your name, on the field, and I will be, I will.  But I see now… I will also be the one to hold you up.”

 

*****

In the next cycle of sleep Dean dreams he is a dragon.  He is resting on a hoard of gold and emeralds. When his breath puffs out it is with tendrils of smoke.  He can breathe _fire_ .  His scales are made of jade.  He is _strong_ .  He can flex his muscles and _fly_ , if he wants, with great, wide, wings ( _not as wide as the angel’s.  Not as beautiful._ )  His hands and feet are clawed with steel talons that can slash out a throat.  His teeth are sharp as blades.

He is not afraid.  He does not know how to be afraid.  He does not remember ever being afraid.  He is a great green dragon and his eyes are made of gold and his blood is made of heat and he is master of the skies.

A man comes, to feed him.  The man wears rough woven cloth belted with rope, but he carries a staff and Dean knows he is deadly, with it ( _knives, he should have knives, I will burn every village with my breath until he has them)_.  The man has dark hair, and blue eyes.  He feeds Dean rubies and jet that is black as smoke.  It is right, that he comes to feed Dean. This is what Dean deserves.  He is majesty.

When Dean is full of gems and his golden eyes are drooping closed, he allows the man to approach.  They do not speak, but they understand each other. The man climbs up onto Dean’s back, then the flat of his head, so graceful Dean barely feels him.  

He scratches the top of Dean’s head and behind his ears, with his staff.  He sings Dean a slow song about treasure and the open sky in a voice so deep it seems like it is part of the cave that they rest in.  

Before the man leaves, Dean breathes fire on him, a great torrent of flame as tall as the man.  But he is not burned. His eyes become brighter and his shadow becomes darker and strange signs appear, glowing on his staff.  

“Thank you, Master,” he says.  He bows low, and he leaves. That is the end of the dream.

 

*****

Sometimes they don’t talk, for a whole cycle, or more.  Sometimes Dean just lays pillowed in Castiel’s wings, like a pearl, with his hands laced together behind his head, watching the lights swirl in the dark sky like fireworks. Their dance is so complex, it never bores, it is always new, and beautiful.  Sometimes Castiel will let his wing sway gently, like a hammock in the sky.

Dean heals during these times, his trauma seeping away like poison down a drain.  But they don’t talk about it. They don’t have to.

 

*****

Another sleep-cycle Dean dreams he is in combat.  He cannot see himself, but he knows that his eyes are black.  He has only his hands for weapons, and they are unadorned, unarmored.

But he is not afraid.  He vastly outmatches his demon foe.  It is so slow, so stupid. Its weapon is dull, and has no story.  It cannot hurt Dean. It cannot even touch him. He has only to lean away from its strikes, and he goes unmarked.  It pants and heaves, but Dean’s breath is light, enough that he can taunt it.

 _What's wrong with you Iphim?_  
_You used to be a demon._  
_Now you're just a cloud of smoke._  
_Just as harmless._  
_Twice as ugly._  
   
_You’re lucky I'm the one that got you._  
_You're lucky it wasn't my angel._  
   
_Did you forget how to hurt me?_  
_Could you ever hurt me at all?_  
_You never could hurt me at all._  
_Pathetic._  
   
_Don't worry.  It will be over soon._  
   
And then there is a blade in his hand, tooth-shaped, and he jabs it straight through the demon’s neck in one hard movement.

And then, appearing from shadow, stepping up to him, wrapping an arm around his waist, melding into his body:  Castiel. Castiel, chest bare and gleaming. Castiel kissing his neck. “You should have let me, Master.”

And then _lust._ Forgotten, and now remembered, _lust._ For the angel wrapped around him.  Boiling in his blood, the desire to hold on to the dominance of the demon kill and _take._ Slamming Castiel back against a wall and Castiel _whimpering._ This god, with the flashing eyes, whimpering and baring his pale neck for Dean's teeth.

His cock hard.  The heat between their bodies unbearable.  The _need_ to have his angel _now._ Growling.  

Castiel's legs wrapped around him.  “Yes. Dean. More. Harder. _Please.”_ Head thrown back, body arched into Dean's.

Dark voice.  Dark as the black oil in his eyes.  “I'll take care of you angel,” and a hard thrust that makes his angel cry out.  “Take care of you so good, I promise.”

“Yes, Dean.  Master. Please.”

Another hard thrust.  “Gonna make you scream.”

“Please.”

“Gonna fill you up with my come.  Gonna fuck you till you cry.”

“Please,” tears already forming at the corners of Castiel's eyes, voice already rough with his want.

He remembers what it is, to want someone wrapped around him, striving against him.  He remembers, and he wants it to be Castiel.

 

*****

Why did they bring me back?  Dean asks.

Castiel is not glad, to be the bearer of these tidings, or that he has to bear them now.  But he is a faithful servant, and he has a mission, and for a long time that has meant a lot to him.  

“There is a… Prophecy.”

“Prophecies ‘re bull shit.”

“This one isn't.”  Castiel’s voice is dire.  He has faith. But Dean’s face is skeptical, he has known liars and falsehoods, and they have become weapons that have stabbed him in the back.  That skepticism urges Castiel to continue. _It’s real, my hero.  Too real. I’m sorry._

“In the End, the archangel Michael will battle Lucifer, the betrayer, for dominion over the Earth.  Eternal paradise, if Michael wins, eternal fire, if Lucifer.”

“And?”  Dean never even went to Sunday school, and he still knows that story.  Even he knows that. Those names: Michael, Lucifer. But not Dean Winchester.  His name was not called, with those ones.

“You are the vessel of the archangel Michael.  You will be his body on the field. When he swings his sword, it will be with your arm.”  Castiel’s eyes lid over. “If he takes wounds from the betrayer, they will seep with your blood. His triumph is your triumph.  His pain is your pain.”

“But why _me_ ?” Dean asks. “Why’d you have to bring _me_ back, out of all the black eyed sons of bitches in the Pit.”  More quietly. “Why's it gotta be me.” More quietly still, as to himself.  “Why’s it _always_ gotta fuckin’ be me?”

“You are the only soul that can match Michael,” Castiel says, lifting Dean up with his wings, higher than even the level of his eyes now, raising him up heavenward.  “You are the only one that is strong enough. Fierce enough. Bright enough.” _Beautiful enough,_ he adds, only to himself.  “Any other would be destroyed by the fire of his righteousness.  But _you_ will be his body.   _You_ will be his blood.”  A choir sounds in his voice as he exalts, a choir like a chime, ringing out crystal through the stars.  

But the choir is just out of key.  Castiel had imagined that he would fill with pride, when he brought this news to his charge.  He had imagined that his charge would take on the mantle of Heaven, resigned but defiant in opposition to the Serpent.  He didn’t think he would say these words with sorrow. He didn’t think he would wish that his charge could just stay with him, safe in a warded cabin, hidden in the fog on a mountain in North Dakota, instead of having to carry the sword and become the fury.  He thought the End Times would bring him the ecstasy of the Father. He thought his charge’s glory would cover him, and feel like his own. He thought his charge would be only a vessel, only a body, to him. He didn’t think he would be a person. He didn’t think he would want to hold him to his heart.  

Dean is there, Dean is a person, whether Castiel expected him or not.  “He’s gonna wear me like a condom while he fights his douchebag brother,” he summarizes.  Vulgarity like a slap in the face, to Castiel. But not… not untrue.

“Yes, I…  Yes. I suppose you could put it that way, though it is very crass.  Dean--”

“What happens to me when he blows his load?  He gonna chuck me in the garbage with the rest of his discards?” Crudeness to cover fear; Castiel can hear it in his voice and feel it tremble against his wings.

He does not know how to respond.  He feels… deflated. This moment should be joyous.  Templar fire should burn behind the eyes of the Vessel.  Lightshould come out from behind the clouds on Earth, because the weapon of Michael is ascendant.  Snakes should hide, in their dark places. It shouldn’t feel like _this_.  Dirty.  Shameful.  It should feel like he is placing a crown on Dean's brow.  Not like he is preparing him for a molestation.

How can he bring his choir back into true?  He is diligence. He tries. “No one will be… Discarded, in paradise.  Least of all you. You will sit on an ivory throne. You will have wings, and eyes that see far.  We will sing songs, about you; we will kneel at your feet.” _I will kneel first, among my brothers.  “_ You will eat only ambrosia and drink only wine, and be touched only by petals.”   _And my hands, my lips, if you wish it, with such gentleness, such reverence._ His choir soars.  His eyes light. In Paradise, forever, as it is written.  Castiel will sit at Dean’s feet forever. He will--

“Sounds like bullshit, to me,” Dean says, tremor underlining his coarseness.  “Sounds like the kind of crap assholes tell kids before they strap dynamite on them and send them to go blow themselves up.”  He wonders who the poor sorry son of a bitch is that gets to be Lucifer’s prom dress. He wonders if Lucifer is offering him the same line of shit.  He imagines Lucifer’s sales pitch is better.

“Dean --”

“What if I say no?”

Another slap in the face.   _He has to say yes,_ Uriel had told him.  And Naomi, and Zachariah.   _Find him.  Raise him. Heal him.  Keep him safe. Prepare him.  He has to say yes.”_ Castiel's entire mission.  And Castiel now… Questioning.  With Dean. Right now. _What if Dean says no_ ?  The question _resonating_ within Castiel.  Bringing a hundred more.  What will Castiel do? What _should_ Castiel do?  What is he _willing_ to do, to make Dean say _Yes,_ and why does it now seem like so much less than what he was willing to do when he was given this mission?  Or, what would he be willing to do so that Dean could say _No_?

He stumbles.  “He cannot… Michael cannot… enter… you without your permission.”  

Dean chuffs a laugh, darkly.  “But…”

“But, there is little he would not threaten, to make you say ‘Yes.’  To bring about eternal Paradise and the return of the Father… there are a great many obscenities that would seem like nothing, to him, to bring about that end.”   _I’m sorry, Dean.  My hero. So sorry._

“Sounds like a great guy,” Dean says, spitefully.  “Can’t wait to get to know him.” He understands now, what Castiel said, about the angels finding different ways to hurt him.  He knows that there are strings that can be cut, inside him, to make him agree to anything.  He knows what he did in the Pit. He knows how much of it he said no to. He knows what it took, to make him stop saying no.  He finds that he is not that surprised, that the angels are no better than the demons, when it comes down to that.

“I cannot save you from it,” Castiel says, thinking now that he would, he would save Dean from this trial, if he could, no matter what is written.  His voice is small, not echoing at all anymore despite his expanse, his choir gone silent like a bell that has been clapped. He doesn’t understand what he is saying, or what he is feeling to make him say it.   _He has to say yes_ .  That is his mission.  Michael must have his weapon.  The serpent must be defeated. Paradise, or failure and fire.  It should be so clear. Castiel should not want to _save_ the Vessel from this, this is the highest of callings, the most honored.  He should find the glory of Paradise inside himself, and show it to Dean, so he can know what the End Times will bring and how exalted he will be for bringing them.

But… He feels lost in the space between how triumphal this moment should be and how desolate it is in truth.  He doesn’t understand why he ever thought anyone would be joyful to learn they will be enslaved. He doesn't understand how he was what he was, or how he became what he is right now.  Dean Winchester has undone him. In the past, the present, the future.

His eyes are liquid with sadness, when he repeats, “I cannot save you.  They would only unmake me, and take you away.” _And then I would not get to have you, not like you dreamed, not even like this, not even in my wings, in this empty place._ His voice is down to a whisper “I wish I could keep you here, just like this, just with me.”   _Safe and far from harm.  So light in my wings. A beating heart._

The tremble in Castiel’s voice and the wetness in his eyes… and Dean is confused too, he does not understand how the angel who blazed into the Pit and wreaked havoc there and came away unmarked, the one who seemed to be reading to him words of prophecy from a book, the one so like a stone in his duty, could become this, could _feel_ like this.  

_How?_

_You._

Even less does Dean understand how he could want, so much, what the angel offers:  to be kept here, just like this. He didn’t think he would ever want anything that much, ever again.  

“We can’t stay?”

“No, Dean… Not forever.  Only a little while longer, now.”   _My charge.  My hero. My beautiful._ The tip of a wing brushes back a strand of hair, from Dean’s forehead.  “They will call us to return, all too soon.”

 

*****  

Dean dreams that he is cold, and Castiel makes him another blanket, to replace the one he dirtied on the mountain.  He dreams that Castiel wraps it around his body with gentle hands and makes sure that he is surrounded by warmness.

He dreams that his body aches, and tracks of tears stick to his face, and Castiel eases him into a warm stone pool.  He dreams that Castiel scrubs him with citrus-scented sand, until his skin is pink and he his clean.

He dreams that he is hungry, and Castiel feeds him.  Soup if he is sick. Ice cream if he is sad. Chicken wings if a hunt has gone badly.  Pumpkin pie on Halloween, and cherry on his birthday.

He dreams that he is tired, and Castiel lays him down to rest on a soft cloud and kisses his brow and strokes his hair and hums to him with his rough, rumbling voice until he falls asleep.  

He dreams that his lips are chapped, and Castiel kisses them.  

He dreams that he is hot with fever, and Castiel presses chips of ice to his forehead and cool towels to the back of his neck, scented like eucalyptus.  He dreams that his brain is fogged up, too hot, and nothing makes sense, nothing is real but the feeling of his back resting against Castiel’s chest and the sound of Castiel’s voice saying, “Shhhh, Dean, it’s ok.  I’m here.”

He dreams that a hundred creatures leap at him:  Vampire, werewolf, ghoul, demon, hellhound; they are made of blood and teeth and scales and shadows.  He dreams that none of them touch him. They all meet a blade. They all meet the intercession of Castiel.  Dean stands as they leap at him, the minions of darkness, coming at him in an unending line, every creature he has ever hunted and others he has never seen or even heard of.  They leap at him, and he does not flinch. He knows who guards him. He knows that darkness will not reach him. They pile at his feet and his eyes turn black. Their bodies become his throne and it grows, higher and higher, rib cages piled on skulls, until he cannot even see the live ones beneath him anymore, they are so far below him, still throwing themselves at him, still meeting the blade.  

Castiel takes care of him in his dreams.  He never thought he would want that, to show weakness to someone else and let them bear the strength.  But now he does want it, now he realizes he has wanted it his whole life. He wants someone to wrap a blanket around him and bathe him and feed him; sing to him and kiss him and soothe him and guard him.  He wants it to be Castiel.

 

*****

“They call to me.  My brethren.” Castiel is holding Dean at the level of his eyes.  Dean’s legs are buried in Castiel’s feathers, like a blanket, and his hands are twined into them, twisted up and scratching lightly.  

If he scratches a little harder, he knows, it makes Castiel shiver, every light, even his eyes.  But he does not scratch now. His hands freeze. A hot spurt of fear injects itself into his neck, behind his eyes.  Castiel doesn’t make idle conversation. What is this call? Is now the time, when they have to leave this place? When Dean has to go back to being afraid and heavy and hurt?  

“What does that mean?”  Maybe it’s nothing. Just calling to say ‘hey.’  Maybe angels do that. The throb of fear doesn’t think so.  

“They call me to return.  They call me to bring the Vessel.  They call me to the End Times. They have sounded the horn of Gabriel.  They have sung the song that begins the end of the world.”

“What does that _mean_?” The fear turns cold, and slides down his chest, into his heart.  

“We cannot stay here, any longer.”   _I am so sorry, Dean.  I am so sorry that our time has been so short.  I am sorry that it has not been enough. I am sorry that soon you will have to hurt again.  I am sorry that I cannot save you, from it._ “We have to return to the mountain.  They will meet us, there. They will prepare you, for Michael.  They will do what they can, to prepare you for the battle.”

“Fuck that.  Tell them I say ‘no.’  Tell them I want to stay here, with you.”  

“They would not hear me.”

“No-- fuck-- Cas, you _make them_ hear you.”

“I’m sorry, Dean.” _You have no idea how sorry._ “We have to return.  Now.”

Then, as if they were never there, the stars all vanish, and there they stand again, Dean and Castiel, feet in a carpet of damp leaves, skin crawling with cold from the fog upon the mountain.  

 

*****  

Dean has a final dream before the return to the mountain.  Castiel is dressed in a white robe that skims the tops of his toes.  It is long sleeved, and high collared. Dean is in a suit of armor. They stand in a ray of sunlight, and the sun catches some goldwork on the knuckles of Dean’s gauntlets and sparkles.  

He kisses Castiel, in the sunlight, while the sky falls down around them.  

He feels _love_ in this dream, _love_ , even if he thought he had banished it from his heart and forgotten it forever.  He remembers what it is, for his heart to beat with the want for someone to love him.  He remembers, and he wants it to be Castiel.

 

*****

It is hard to tell how long they stayed, twining into each other, in the not-empty-place.  Time is different there. It moves forward, it moves backwards, it _resonates._

There are not as many leaves on the trees, now.  There is not yet any snow, but it is on the air. The blackberries are dead now, frozen and black.  Dean’s breath hovers in front of his face as he climbs the steps to the cabin. The fire has long since gone out, and it is cold, inside.  Gravel on his shoes scratches at the wood plank floor. He does not hold the door open for Castiel; he does not acknowledge him at all. He instead crosses the room to the fireplace, and pokes at the blackened log there with an iron.  

Completely cold.  No embers. He reaches to his pocket, instinctively, for his lighter.  But it is not there. Castiel did not recreate it, when he raised Dean.  His pocket is empty.

He knows that Castiel would light the fire for him if he asked.  But he doesn’t ask. He goes into the cabin’s one bedroom for the first time, and shuts the door behind him, without looking back.  

 

*****

The cabin shakes when the angels arrive.  Uriel, smug and regal. Zachariah, smug and slime-eyed.  Bartholomew, smug and too well-coiffed. Castiel’s mission is over, and they cast him aside like litter from a car window.  Their mission has begun. _Receive his permission.  Present him to Michael. Begin the End._

Dean emerges from the cabin’s bedroom, ready to confront the messengers of Heaven with a baseball bat from the hall closet.  Old, sticky tape crosshatches its grip, and his knuckles are white around it.

He steps up to Uriel.  He is unafraid. Castiel has helped him remember how.

Uriel does not flinch; not in the face of this golem of earth and clay.  He raises his hand, to touch Dean’s forehead and take him to the secret location where Michael hides.  But Castiel, thrown aside as he may be, speaks. “He says ‘No.’”

Uriel holds his hand in the air, almost touching Dean while Dean bristles, and looks at Castiel curiously, like Castiel is a dog that has been silent its whole life and now has started to talk.

“He says ‘No.’ He does not give his permission.  He does not assent to Michael’s possession. He does not want to be the Vessel.  He does not want to fight the final battle.” Castiel becomes small, under Uriel’s gaze, trained to it over the eons, but still, he speaks.  That is the extent of his want, to remain here with Dean. “Leave him. Let him stay here, with me. Find another.”

“There is no other,” Uriel says, pretending to be reasonable.  “You know this, brother. There is only one that broke the seal.”

“Broke the what?”

Castiel ignores Dean's interjection.  “There is none other _now._ In the fullness of time, there may come another.  The sun of Earth is long from dead. There may be another, before it dims.  Let him stay here with me, until that time.” _Let us have that much.  Each other, until the sun goes dark.  Maybe that would be enough._

Zachariah’s mouth is hanging open.  Bartholomew is smugly adjusting his cuff links.  Uriel is looking at Castiel as if he were a not only a talking dog, but a talking dog speaking Pig Latin.  

Zachariah regains the powers of speech first.  “We are not _waiting_ for the _death of the sun,_ you jumped up cherub.  Michael is ascendent _now._ We will bring paradise _now._ We will be reunited with the Father _now.”_ He turns to Uriel open handed, as if to say _Can you believe this idiot?_

“Not if the Vessel says No,” Castiel replies, voice hard as stone, teeth grinding, back straightening again.  “Then you will bring nothing.” His wings flash behind him, for a short second.

Bartholomew coughs a laugh, and Uriel glances towards it, smiling an ugly smile, before returning his attention to Castiel.  “Castiel. Be reasonable. You don't think I can make a mud man say ‘Yes’?” Bartholomew’s cufflinks are undone, now, and he has pushed his sleeves up to his elbows.  As if preparing for dirty business.

Castiel holds his ground.  “I don't think you can if I don't let you.  He is my charge. I will not permit you to assail him.”  So brave, the angel of Thursday.

All the levity erases itself from Uriel’s face.  “So you have failed your mission?”

This is a dangerous question, and Castiel knows it.  If he failed his mission he can be replaced. Or… Worse.  “I found him. I raised him. I kept him safe. I will prepare him.  For the End Times. Not for this foolish acceleration. It is you that have failed, to keep the faith until the return of the Father-- to try to bring it about before its time.”

This speech only makes Uriel and Bartholomew laugh again, Zachariah’s mouth dropped open even farther, his arms spread wide in appeal to sanity and good sense that is not present in this moment.

These smug jerkwads piss Dean off.  They do NOT get to laugh at his angel.  

“Hey.  Assholes.”  They all turn to him.  Time to back Castiel's play.  He gets it. The death of the world is a long time away.  A long time to swing in hammock wings and count the stars.  A long time to make a better plan.

“Yes, mud man?”

“I say ‘No’.  You hear that, pigfuckers?  ‘No’ right now. But I will say ‘Yes’ when the true end comes.  No bullshit. No weird angel torture porn. Just ‘Yes’. If you let me stay here with Cas.  I won't run, I won't try to hide, I won't fight. Let it come, and I will say ‘Yes’.” _Till the end of the Earth will be enough.  It has to be._

Uriel looks sadly at Castiel.  “This is how you prepared the Vessel, brother?  To be a coward? To be afraid? You did fail your mission, then.”

Unacceptable.  His charge is not a coward.  The obscenities Dean has endured… Unacceptable.  Castiel’s angel blade drops into his hand from the sleeve of his trenchcoat.  A blur, he raises it to strike.

Not fast enough.  He hears Dean shout “No,” sees him held back by Bartholomew, just before Uriel’s impossibly fast strike to his forehead.   _Too fast.  Even for Uriel.  He must have been planning this, he must have… “_ Dean--” He tries to warn, something, anything.

But it is too late.  Castiel falls to his knees, as light shoots out of his eyes and mouth.  His mind is opened up, as with a scalpel, and every moment since the siege empties out, into a vacuum.  The cabin. The blanket. The blackberries. The empty place. Gone, gone, gone, gone.

When he has slumped over at Uriel's feet, Uriel dusts off his hands, and looks over at Dean, who is struggling to get to Cas against Bartholomew’s grip.  “He was getting too close to do what needed to be done. Losing his judgement.” He advances on Dean. “Too close to his charge.” His hand strikes Dean in just the same manner as it struck Castiel, but instead of light rushing out of Dean's eyes and mouth, ugly black smoke rushes in.  Dean doesn't hear him say “You.”

Dean collapses.  A heavy, black door slams down over his vision of the cabin.  He can't see it. Then he can't remember it. Then everything is black, only black, and his heart is fluttering in his chest because he is afraid that Alistair will come down off the platform and see him, soon.  Want him.

Uriel kicks him, a vicious foot to his stomach, and he doubles over.  This. He remembers this. Nothing else. It has always been this. It always will be.  He shakes where he lays in the fetal position.

“Are you ready to say ‘Yes’ now, mud man?”

Dean is too afraid to speak, so Uriel kicks him again, this time a kick to his head, concussing him, making his brain feel like it has hit a wall of bricks.

He only whimpers, “No, no, no, no,” the same sad pleas he had for Castiel, when first he was raised.  

“NO?!” Uriel roars, enraged that this lump of meat has defied him, even this long.  He crushes Dean's head between his two hands and holds their foreheads together for a moment before calm returns to him, and he smiles his horrible smile again.  

“Do you need to remember?” He asks, and as he does his voice morphs, his body morphs, into the dead form of Alistair.  “Do you need me to help you remember how to say yes, Pretty?”

Dean scrambles away, rolling into the fetal position on the ground again, protecting his head in his hands.  “No, Master, no, no, I remember. Whatever you want. I'll be good. I promise.”

Uriel's ugly smile climbs higher on his face as Zachariah claps him on the back.  So easy.

He touches Castiel's lifeless form, and sends it to Naomi.  She will help their poor, weak, brother to recover from this laughable mission.  He does not know who gave the orders that Castiel be the one to raise the Vessel, but he thinks they must have been a fool.

He doesn't know it was the Father.  He doesn't know it was the entire universe.  He doesn't know that his petty betrayal will come to nothing but his death, Zachariah's death, Bartholomew’s and Naomi’s and Ion’s and even Raphael’s, a whole pile of halos on Dean's bedside table, because the universe will _bend_ and Dean Winchester will take the Mark of Cain and become an angel hunter.

So Uriel is able to remain smug when he touches Dean's crumpled body, and returns it to its sun bleached tomb.

 

*****

 _Dean Winchester is saved_ sings the Host.

One lone hand claws its way up from the grave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hoooo boy I feel like an asshole calling this chapter "Dean Winchester is Saved." 
> 
> Angels are DICKS. 
> 
> I'm going for 15,000 reads with this chapter, eeeeeeeee! <3
> 
> On Tumblr, I am brainheartpizza (https://www.tumblr.com/blog/brainheartpizza). I post unedited excerpts between AO3 updates.


	22. A Bell Rings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Castiel. Angel of Thursday.” Dean bites the soft flesh at the top of Castiel's thigh. “Tender meat, to be caught by a fiend like me.” He lets his horns grow out, with a ragged crackle, and bites beneath Castiel's navel. “Tender and sweet.” 
> 
> *New tag this chapter: Breathplay. There is a description in the end notes.

Chapter 22:  A Bell Rings  
  
 _I'm up with the kites and I dream so blue_  
 _I live in the sky, you come live here too_  
 _I'm queen of the clouds, make my wish come true._  
 _I sing to the night, let me sing to you_  
 _Baby, listen please_  
 _I'm not on drugs, I'm not on drugs,_  
 _I'm just in love_  
 _\--_ Not on Drugs, Tove Lo  
  
\---Present---

“That son of a bitch,” Dean says, tears leaking from his eyes, indignation fighting old pain in his voice.  He does not let go of his hold on Castiel's neck, to wipe his tears away. His fingers tighten, a little, there.

“God damn it.  God damn him.” He turns away from Cas in a sudden fever, and scrambles his hands in the pile of halos on his bedside table, breathing heavily. Halos fall to the side of the pile, behind the bed, to the floor with dull clunks, until Dean finds the one that he wants.  The Enochian: Uriel. And the glyph of the horned bull, Uriel's sign.

Dean stares at Uriel’s halo, face an ugly, hateful mask, eyes black, upper teeth biting his lower lip.  Castiel has stretched himself across the bed to reach out to Dean, reach his hand to Dean's shoulder and comfort him, but Dean pushes him away, and stands.  The fire in their fireplace, long dead as they fell through memory and time, lights itself with a roar at a twitch of Dean's finger.

“That son of a bitch,” Dean repeats, pacing in front of the fire.  “He took you away from me. All that time we were on the mountain, and in the empty place… he took that away and left me with HIM.”  Dean's voice chokes on the  _ him _ .  “He left me with everything… Everything that Alistair…” he's choking on it, even just the idea, “Every god damned thing Alistair did to me, I kept it all.  Every second.  _ Everything _ .  Everything HE did, everything he made ME do.  For ten years I  _ lived _ with that, nothing forgotten, not one fucking minute, that fucking dick angel left me with all that and took YOU away.”

“Dean--”  Castiel has crawled to the edge of the bed.  He sees the injustice here, it is plain. What the angels took from Dean in memory and what horrors they left him, especially given what they asked of him.  He wants to… Right it. He feels off balance in the immediate presence of this wrong; its presence in Dean's pacing, Dean's distress, right now.

Dean continues.  “He took away the only good… The first memory I wanted to make in 50 years… The only time I ever felt… _ ever.”  _ He has to wipe a tear away.   “And he filled it up with a vacuum… Sucked all that up, left it just black and cold with more room for the fear.  And for what?” Dean still paces, pulling at Uriel's halo like he is trying to tear it apart, right hand against left hand.  “For what?” He whispers again, to himself.

Castiel hears the choir of his new-grace stir, angry, a swarm of hornets.   _ For what, was the Master tormented, so?  For what? _

He speaks.  “It was not… right.  What Uriel did to you.  I could not save you from it then.  I…regret that. Tell me, lord: What justice would you give him, now?  He is dead. His oaths are broken. We live, ascendent.”

Dean stills in front of the fire, and hangs his head.  “Dunno, Cas. But it feels like it wasn't enough, killing him.  Now he's just dead. He doesn't have to suffer the memories.” His voice is rough like sandpaper.

“You would have him suffer?”  Hard iron comes to Castiel's voice, and he stands.  He will see that Uriel will have suffering without end if that is what Dean requires.  No one will suffer, the way that Uriel will suffer...

But Dean shakes his head,  _ no.  “ _ That's not… No, I don't want that.  Not more memories like  _ that _ .  But I can't stand, can't fucking stand his halo here in our room, made of gold, untouched after all the shit he put us through.”

Castiel has an idea.  His choir sings a bright awakening.  He knows, what final, swift justice to bring.  That is the purpose of an angel. That is  _ his  _ purpose.

But Dean continues.  “I can't -- why does he get to be stored forever, like lawnmower man or Neo or whatever the fuck in a golden house when I can't ever get back… That time I spent with what he  _ left me,  _ when he  _ took you… _ I was so angry, do you remember, I could hardly breathe, when I came back, I…”

“I remember, Dean.”  Castiel had not been able to understand how one body could hold so much anger.  Naomi had taken away the part of him that would have been able to understand. He thought: Dean would flame out, at any moment, brighter than the sun.  He thought: Dean must be so strong, to be filled with that and bear it.

He can be strong for Dean, now.

“He will not live forever in a golden house, Master.  He will not ride the celestial waves, conscienceless of the suffering he has given you.  I will  _ unmake  _ him.”   _ For you. _

Dean nods, and casts his arm back, as if he is going to throw Uriel's halo into the fire.

But:  “We won't be able to unmake him like that,” Castiel stops him, stepping forward and catching Dean’s wrist in a steady hand before Dean can let go.  His voice is humorless, serious. This is serious work. The most serious. Unmaking.

Dean looks at him, a terrible twitch in his eyes-- as if he thinks that if he does not destroy Uriel in the fire, right now, the halo will transform and bite him like a snake.  For a second he twitches towards the fire, like he might throw Uriel’s halo in anyway. But then he softens, and releases himself to Castiel.

Castiel pulls Dean in close to him, by the wrist he has grabbed.  He is so soft with Dean, and careful, despite what they are about to do. “It's OK, Dean.  I know how.” He says it calmly, though he is talking about the worst possible violence, about total obliteration.  “I know how. Uriel will find justice. I will give it to him.”

Dean slumps forward into Castiel’s arms, and the fire goes out.  “‘S not OK, angel,” He says under his breath. “I shoulda got to keep you.  For what they wanted me to do… I shoulda got to keep you.”

Castiel bites his lip, and wraps a hand around the back of Dean’s head, to pull it in and cradle it under his own chin.  “You should have. They should never have taken you from me. I shouldn’t have let them. I shouldn’t have even let them try.  But I was so new to the world then, I only knew how to be a star. I'm…. I’m sorry they were cruel to you in their vainglory, my king.  I'm sorry I couldn't save you from it.” He holds Dean to him, and thinks a moment before continuing. Dean is silent against him.

“Many things are different now, Master.” His voice is grim, but it picks up strength as he continues:  “They are dead, and we are alive. Their oaths are broken, and we are bonded as one, forever. Their prophecies are null, while... I… I have read The Fallen.”  He pauses, and swallows down every light timbre of his voice, so that when he speaks again it is dark, and looming. “They know only the cold grey of dirt and failure.  While I…” He releases a breath. “I know how to unmake Uriel.”

Dean looks up, at Castiel, and Castiel presses one long finger to his lips.  They are so smooth beneath his fingertip. He will erase Uriel from time, for the smoothness of those lips.  

“He will vex you no longer,” Castiel promises into Dean’s oil black eyes.  “I will not allow it.”

 

*****

They go to the plane of fire.

Lucifer, in the time of  _ The Fallen,  _ perfected a magical discipline that wove together grace and blood into a blinding, terrible, force.  Dangerous, cruel,  _ forbidden,  _ its practice had not known an adept in two thousand years.

Until Castiel read  _ The Fallen _ , and had nothing left to fear and no one left to forbid him, and took the power of the archangel Raphael into himself.

Now, in this, Castiel is as adept as was Lucifer.  Now, Castiel gestures and the demon Gary, obliterated to ashes when last Castiel visited here, reconstitutes into a corpse.  Castiel has his white ceramic blade, and he unsheaths it from his back and kneels down by Gary to cut into the dead flesh of his forehead.

Dean follows uncertainly.  He does not visit the plane of fire often.  He prefers not to know what Castiel does, here.  

“Lucifer thought he could raise an army of slaves,” Castiel says, narrating as Dean steps up to his shoulder.  “He would carve his Name into a dead vessel,” and this is what Castiel carves,  _ Lightbringer,  _ livid and red, into the pale skin of Gary’s body's forehead.  “And slit its wrist,” Castiel slits, holding Gary's wrist up, so that Dean can see.  “Then he would try to force the grace of an enemy inside.” Castiel tugs Uriel's halo away from Dean.  “He thought his Name would control the body, and with it the power of its stolen grace.” Castiel chants the Latin to coax whatever is left of Uriel's grace from its halo.  Dean mouths along, silently.

“That's not what happens, of course,” Castiel continues, as the cloud of Uriel's grace, freed from its halo, starts to vibrate unhealthily in the air.  Seeming to be pulled towards the slit in Gary's wrist but… Repelled by the name carved in his forehead, it tears against itself, and hovers, unable to possess the vessel or be repelled entire, but called with such strength to both.  

Castiel gestures at the grace-cloud, buzzing like a transformer with a frayed electrical wire with sharp, electric sparks.  The air polarizes, and turns to the scent of burnt ozone.

“The blood magic calls the grace but… Lucifer’s name is an affront, to the angels.  And Uriel…” The sparking of the grace-cloud intensifies. “His sins were many, but he did oppose Lucifer.”

Dean watches Uriel's grace break into shards.  It shears, shattering against itself into smaller and smaller pieces which then shatter to smaller pieces still.  This continues, fractally, terribly, until some critical threshold is reached, and the pieces are too small to support their own mass and still be shorn by the opposing forces placed upon them by Castiel’s fiat.  

The cloud breaks apart, then, the colossal energy required to bind the grace of an angel through all of eternity simultaneously released. It explodes against itself, then retracts periscopically and implodes. It collapses in and in and in, a black hole swallowing itself, swallowing every microscopic trace of grace, then swallowing even the heat and light in the plane of fire until all is dark, and cold, for just one moment.  

Dean reaches for Castiel’s hand in the silence.

Then the light comes back like the dawn, rising like the sun over the horizon.  And that is it, that is the end, the angel Uriel is gone, and all that remained of him is dissipated from the Earth.  

Castiel takes up his explaining, again, but he is quieter now, less strident in the new dawn.  “The other angels, the ones on your bedside,” He rises up from Gary's side, touches Dean's shoulder.  “You could bring them back, or at least… Feel them, their… Wavelength, their intent, from the halos. If you found a willing host. Especially if you found one from a vessel line.”  He presses against Dean's side. “You could feel me that way, if you wanted it.”

Dean shivers, even in the heat of the plane of fire, and holds Castiel to him with one arm.  He wants it. If it is Castiel, or part of him, he wants it. He wonders what it would feel like, to have that much of Castiel's grace inside of him.  He wonders if he could contain it, or if it would burn him out like a husk.

“But now Uriel, the Angel of Repentance, whose domain is thunder and terror, is un-made from space and time.”  He feels his new-grace roaring up inside him, he feels himself moving faster and faster towards it, like he is on a boat rushing towards a waterfall.  

His eyes flash.  

“I have ended him.”  He is on the edge of the waterfall.  

“For you.” He tips over, and falls free, grace deafening around him.

It is the white noise of the falls for a long second, so loud it disorients Castiel, until it resolves itself into its choir.  It sings out high and victorious, triumphant, in praise of Castiel's unmaking of his brother. It surprises Castiel, how exultant his new choir is at this  _ destruction  _ of everything that was another angel.  His old grace did not exult, when he brought low one of his brothers; it sang songs elegaic, and sad.  But this grace… it is as prideful as his adversary was mighty, and it burns hot inside him, white fire where his heart should be and the buzzing of wasps in his fingertips.  

This grace is more joyful, more  _ alive  _ than the cold blue fire that used to be inside him.  It has feeling, it has heat. He has rendered judgement, he has been swift, and furious and cold-eyed, he has brought justice for his king, and now he hears the song of his divinity.  His eyes flash again and white wings form and disappear behind him, lightning fast. He feels a blade in his hand, when his wings flicker heavy and pure over his shoulder. The blade is not silver and shining, and not so smooth as his angel blade was.  This one is pocked iron, heavy and black, as if it were made out of the darkness that was created by the implosion of Uriel's grace. It is gone with the lightning strike, but he feels it still in his hand and he thinks he will always feel it there, now, and that like his wings he could bring it back if he needed it.

Incandescent wings, heavy blade, grace screaming and turning over slowly inside him, a vast dark cloud.  He is alive. He is Fallen. He is an angel again, but he does not belong to Yahweh as he did when Charon challenged him outside the gates.  He has another Master, now.

Dean.  

He wants Dean.  Now.  __ He wants to be on his knees, for Dean.  __ This was also not the nature of his old grace.  He never… Wanted. Like this. After a mission or during it, he never felt the need to crash to his knees in his plate and bow his head to his captain, no matter the victory, no matter the conquest.  He never felt _ anything _ more than contentment, and the duty to serve the Host.

It is different, with this grace. With this grace… there is no contentment.  There is violence, and triumph, vicious triumph. And it is not enough, to serve Dean. This service, especially, was too easy, it did not show the depth of his devotion.  For that… Castiel wants to  _ submit.   _ To Dean.  To the Master.  It is not enough to be only Castiel, eye and hand and shield and justice but apart, aloof, untouchable.  It is not  _ enough _ .  He cannot hold himself apart.  He must give himself over, until there is no Castiel inside him anymore, only the will of the Master, whatever that may be.

And, oh God, Dean feels it.  He feels what Castiel feels, through the bond:  the white fire, the buzzing, all over the surface of his skin, crackling in the places where their bodies touch, the desire in Castiel to fall to his knees, and become Dean’s slave.  Blood rushes to his cock, and Castiel slips his hand, hot and damp with sweat, into Dean's pants to cup him there. “The angel Uriel is erased from all of time, by your command, Master,” Castiel growls.  He bites Dean's neck. “Forget him. Remember your servant, whose hand erased him, and served you well.” He bites again. “How else may I serve you?”

Dean closes his eyes and breathes.  He has to ground himself, become flawless in control of himself for what is to come.  If he is not flawless, he will immolate on his own desire, and Castiel will be burnt with him.  If he is not flawless, he will not deserve Castiel, like this. Castiel wants the Master. Castiel wants to be enslaved, by the demon king.  Dean wants to take him, but he will have to be perfect, to put something so perfect on its knees.

He bites the inside of his mouth, to center himself.  It is hard, to even his breath and relax his shoulders, because Castiel is pressed against him, offering himself like a tribute.  As much as if he were draped in white, virgin, the most precious beauty left on an altar as desperate sacrifice to a jealous god. To be taken away and kept forever.  

“Let me serve you,” Castiel whispers into Dean's collarbone.  “Please.” His voice is sex and smoke when he says please. There is no doubt as to the service he offers.

Dean’s concentration snaps into steel.  Dean is the demon. Dean is the king.

His hands rise up, to scratch, to thread into Castiel’s hair and pull Castiel’s mouth to where he can bite it.  It is  _ his mouth,  _ now, and he wants it.

But… this rush in his blood, it reminds him of their time together on his throne, and the bruises he made, on Castiel’s back (“Leave them.  Float with me,” Castiel had said, when Dean tried to heal them). It is no softer here. And though Dean has no doubt that Castiel would say the same again, if Dean were to take him here on the hot rock floor, Dean promised that he would take better care of his angel.

His hands fall to his sides, fisting.  “Let's go back.”

“Back, Master?”  Castiel kisses Dean’s neck softly, before tilting his head up to look at him, eyes glassy dark and stupid with want.

“Back to our room, angel.  Where I can take care of you.”    

Castiel suckles on the lobe of Dean's ear, pressing himself closer.  “Whatever you want, Master,” and Dean feels what Castiel imagines happening there; it's feverish in his head, like it was injected into his bloodstream.  He feels how Castiel wants to be lain out, naked under Dean, bitten, hair pulled, fucked. Chained to the bed again. Chained to the bed, covered in Dean's come, head lolling and tongue hanging out and pool of sweat at the base of his throat. He wants to be  _ used _ by Dean,  _ belong _ to Dean, be nothing of himself and only what Dean wants him to be.

It would feel so good, to take him that way.  Dean moans in anticipation a moment  _ before  _ Castiel grinds down against his thigh.  His control flickers.

“Give me some of your come, first, Master?” Castiel begs, and grinds down again.  “Please?” Dean almost does, almost comes there, hot and damp in Castiel’s hand. He almost shoves Castiel to the ground and bites into the meat of his shoulder until it bleeds.  

But he holds himself back, only by the steel of his concentration, and pulls Castiel close, for their travel.  He turns Castiel's face roughly, by the jaw, up from where he is biting at Dean’s neck to look at him with black eyes.  “I'll take care of you angel. Take care of you real good. I promise you that.”

Castiel whimpers, and clings to Dean.  One flap of Dean's wings, and they are back in their room.

 

*****

Dean lays Castiel out on a bed that is soft.  He clears the room of the smell of smoke, that his fire left behind.  He replaces it with sandalwood, one stick of incense lit on the fireplace mantel.  

He touches Castiel, his angel lain out before him, everywhere, with his hands.  With  _ LOVE CAS _ tattooed on his knuckles every nerve bundle under Castiel’s skin seems to be flashing like a neon sign.   _ TOUCH ME.  BITE ME. HERE. _  Castiel's cock hardens, and weeps, and he begins to jerk under Dean's touches.   _ How does he know… every touch… Oh… Oh… Oh.   _ Every touch is perfect.  Just hard enough, just rough enough, in just the right place each time, each time paused just enough for just enough anticipation.

When Castiel is mewling beneath him, Dean dismounts him, and chains his ankles and wrists to their bed, with the iron cuffs that hang there.  ( _ How will I know if you want me to stop?  I won't. How will I know? I'll cry out for Beezlebub.  Beezlebub.)  _ His eyes are oil black as he knees onto the bed.

“Castiel.  Angel of Thursday.”  He bites the soft flesh at the top of Castiel's thigh.  “Tender meat, to be caught by a fiend like me.” He lets his horns grow out, with a ragged crackle, and bites beneath Castiel's navel.   “Tender and sweet.”

Castiel keens with pleasure, but Dean gestures and a gag appears cleaved in his mouth, and muffles him.  He arches off the bed at the sound of his own stifled cry.

The letters on Dean's knuckles flash gold when they hold down Castiel's waist.  His teeth scrape Castiel's nipples, then bite. Left, then right, again, and again, until Castiel is panting against his gag and rising up against Dean in desperate, mindless movements that match the desperate, mindless sounds he is making.  His legs spread around Dean are tan and thick, and his cock is hard against Dean’s body. The sounds he makes behind his gag… They would drive Dean to madness. If he were not in iron control. If he were not king and master of this dominion.

He presses Castiel into the bed with hands on his shoulders, then switches from teeth that rasp his nipples to tongue that soothes; he laps where he has bitten, then sucks until it is too much sensation again, and Castiel's gag is soaked through with the damp vapor of his panting.

“Is this what you want?”  Dean is trying to sound tough for the game, but he cannot hide how affected he is, and his voice is as strangled as it is pitched low.  “This how you want me to take care of you, angel?” And Castiel cries a high pitched affirmative through his gag.

“Want you,” Dean says, and bends down to suck on Castiel's neck.  He sucks hard, but slow, hands coming up to hold Castiel's chained wrists while his mouth raises rings of deep bruises.  “Gonna take my time, with you.” Castiel moans, and writhes up against him. “Gonna do whatever I want with you. Gonna  _ enjoy _ you,” and he moves against Castiel's body, three long strokes of their cocks aligned, hot, perfect, and then retreats, taking his body away but whispering, close in Castiel's ear, “Is that what you want?  For me to do whatever I want, with you? Is that how you want to  _ serve _ me?” 

Tears form at the corners of Castiel's eyes, and he nods his head, voice broken out “Yes, yes,” from behind his sodden gag.  It feels so good, to serve. It feels so good, to be Dean's. His choir sings, high and breathless inside him, and he wonders if he can sink further down, submit even more to Dean.  He imagines Dean coming on his chest, and rubbing it into his skin, like lotion, lotion that makes the tattoo on his neck shimmer like treasure buried under water.

He only imagines it, and Dean shivers on top of him, glimpsing that desire, understanding what it means. He strokes Castiel's thigh, to calm him.   “Yeah, OK, angel. I can give you that. Whatever you want, baby.” His voice is thick. He wants it too. Wants it very much. To have Castiel like that.   _ All of him.   _ He feels his dick leak.  The key to Castiel’s chains is on the bedside table beside him and he sends it to the bottom of the lake of fire with a thought. It melts and becomes part of the molten floor.  He growls, and snaps at Castiel’s neck. Castiel is  _ his.   _ He will keep Castiel  _ here _ .  

He  _ tastes _ Castiel on his tongue and his second growl is almost a shriek.  Castiel tastes so  _ good _ .  He wants to slam his cock into Castiel immediately and fuck him, wild like an animal lost with lust, and he knows Castiel would not deny him; Castiel is crying out in pleasure and grinding into him now as he scratches his fingernails up Castiel’s thighs and snarls into his neck.

The taste of Castiel’s neck is  _ not  _ enough.  He has so many other sweet places, and he would squirm so beautifully, if Dean found them with his tongue.  

He slides down Castiel’s body like sin. He bites the flesh of Castiel’s inner thigh, and growls, his face pressed up against Castiel’s fat cock.  “Gonna taste you, angel,” he says, breathing in Castiel’s musky scent, tasting the air. His mouth is watering. “Gotta.”

Castiel whines, and stretches towards Dean's mouth.

Dean takes Castiel’s cock in and swallows it down to get that taste he craves  _ everywhere: _ on his tongue, down his throat, behind his eyes.  He takes it deep, bobbing his head until Castiel is crying, shaking under Dean and whimpering into his gag, and then, when it is almost too much, when Castiel’s hips start to jerk, Dean pulls off, licking his lips.  

“Taste so sweet, for me, angel.  Like birthday cake. How much of my come do you think I’d have to pump into you, before you didn’t taste sweet, anymore?”  

Castiel shakes his head and moans, tears flying away from his eyes, cock red and dripping and hard as a rock, trying to reach back up towards Dean’s mouth, his body.  But he is chained and Dean holds him down with demon strength. “Sssh, ssh, shh, no, angel. Not yet, not yet,” and he wraps Castiel’s face up in his arm, strokes his hair while he cries.  “It’s OK, sweetheart, we’ll rest,” though this is a mockery, and he knows Castiel's body is crying for release, not rest.

He crawls off of Castiel and curls around his side, one thigh thrown over Castiel’s legs, well below his straining cock, one arm under Castiel’s head, one hand on Castiel’s chest, large and possessive.  He encloses Castiel but does not touch him where he is desperate to be touched. Castiel cries silently into his gag with his eyes closed, tossing his head back and forth weakly on Dean’s arm.

“Think about this all the time, angel,” Dean says, wanting to talk to Castiel while he is gagged the same way he wants to touch him while he is chained.  His voice is low, and too sweet in Castiel's ear for the words he is saying. “What I want to do to you, when I have you chained to my bed. How it would feel to keep you here, and not let you go.  Keep you here just for me. No one else would get to look at you, touch you, talk to you. You would only exist for me. I’d kill anyone that came in here and saw you by mistake. I’d feed you, and clean you, give you my cock, and my come; everything that you need.”  

“I'd keep you naked, all the time, and sometimes I’d touch you, I’d use my hands and my fingers and I’d memorize you.  I’d put perfect fingerprints on your hip bones, on your chin, your brow, your lips, your tongue,  _ inside _ of you.”  

“But sometimes I wouldn’t touch you for days, I’d walk by you, going to and from the racks, not even looking at you, like there wasn’t an angel fallen from heaven chained to my bed, like I wasn’t dying to cover you with my scent and fuck you raw.  I wouldn’t lay one finger on you. I wouldn’t touch you at all. Not until you begged me for it.”

“And then, if you begged, if you did for me real sweet, I might touch you then, and make you blind and deaf so that the only sensations you’d feel would be the taste of my cock, the stretch of it inside you, the weight of me on top of you.  You wouldn’t even hear yourself scream but you’d feel it burning your throat on its way out. You’d feel the tears running down your face, they way they are right now, but your screams would only be for me.”

“That's right angel, shh, shh, it's ok.  I understand. I know, I know baby. I know.  Love you like this. Sometimes I’d make you cry just to see you live this, just so I could see your eyes with tears in them.  They’re beautiful, angel. I killed Heaven for them, you know it’s true. And I’d bring you so many beautiful things, if I kept you here.  Not just me, all the fiends in the Pit, I'd make them give up their dick projects and they’d all be making things for you, finding things for you, just for you, my prize.”  

Dean rides against Castiel’s side, enjoying the feel of him while he thinks about it, all the demons of the Pit with only one imperative:  to serve Castiel.

“They would all have to bring you a crown.  They would all have to kneel before you with their eyes closed, and I would kill the one that brought you the crown you liked best, and it would be a great honor, for a demon, to die that way.  And I would also kill the one that brought you the crown you liked least, and that would be a great shame.”

“I would send them to kill painters and bring them to Hell to paint you, and photographers to photograph you, and I would make a new cave, as high and wide as the throne room and fill it only with pictures of you.  Some of only your eyes, or your lips, or your hands, your brow. It would be a temple; I would send the demons there, to be prayerful, and changed by your beauty. Those wretched, lost, creatures; they would become your angels, they would love you so.”

Castiel eases, eases under Dean's touch.  He wants Dean to do the things he has said he will do. Chain him to the bed.  Feed him his come. Take away sound, or sight, if he doesn't want Castiel to have them.  Kill anyone else that even sees him. Own him.

It would be so beautiful, to belong to Dean.  He would be so beautiful. Tears stream down his face.  Dean doesn’t have to ask why. Dean feels it, too. Castiel would be so beautiful, as his prize.  

Dean kisses Castiel softly on the cheek, on top of his tears, and strokes his hair.  His voice is soft. “Don’t worry, angel. I know what you want. I understand. You want to be mine.  Don't worry, you will be. Got my name, don't you? And I got yours? I’m going to give you what you want.  Gonna give you everything.”

He crawls between Castiel’s legs.  “Gonna get all the tastes of you, angel.  Do you know what you taste like, inside?” He rubs a finger against Castiel, over his hole.  “You’re still sweet there, precious, don’t think you’re not. But like chocolate, instead of cotton candy.”

He places a pillow under Castiel’s hips, and gestures with both of his index fingers to shorten the chains around Castiel’s ankles until his legs are pulled taut, and his ass is completely exposed.  Then he dives in, hands on the beautiful, sharp, bones of Castiel’s hips, mouth wet and sloppy like a horse at a trough. Trying to fuck Castiel further into submission with his tongue.

He is successful.  His tongue is a deadly sin.  “Dean,” Castiel tries to scream out through his gag, but he can’t, and Dean presses his face in deeper, laps his tongue out wider, wetter, gestures at Castiel’s chains to open him up just that little bit further.  Castiel’s voice raises in a wobbling cry that doesn't end, can't, with Dean between his legs and tonguing him, like that. He cries, and wails until he can't take it anymore, he is going to come, he is going…

And Dean's face is gone.  

Castiel screams in frustration against his gag. His cock twitches and spurts a slick of precome, but it is not  _ enough. _

Dean fingers him idly, lube appearing when he needs it, one finger sliding easily in the wet mess he left behind with his mouth.  He is sat back on his heels, long and lean and easy, the veins risen up on his hands and his finger long where it fucks into Castiel.  His eyes are black, and he still has his horns. His teeth look… sharp.

He wants… more.  As much at he has taken already, he wants more.  He knows Castiel does, too. He can feel it.

What he wants to take next though… he has not taken it, before. He removes his hands from Castiel, for a moment, though Castiel whines, and he separates their bodies.  He imagines what he wants, so Castiel can see it, and then with care and precision, he asks:  _ Who will you call for, if you want me to stop?  Beezlebub. Are you calling for him now? No. Are you here, with me?  Yes. What do you want? Let me serve you, Master. Please. _

No fear.  No hesitation.  Only desire, submission.  He wants more. Dean will give it.  It will be hard, it will be rough. Castiel will cry.  He will scream and be marked. It will be so good.

Dean fights a shiver, touching a finger to the center of Castiel's forehead, to his chest.  “Perfect for me. Gonna keep you. I promise. I won’t let anyone else have you, ever.”

Then, with great care, he puts his free hand around the base of Castiel’s throat.  He doesn’t put any pressure there besides the weight of his touch. He keeps sliding his middle finger in and out of Castiel as he talks.  “Want all of you. Want your  _ breath.   _ Can I have your breath, angel?  Can you give it to me?”

Castiel nods through his tears.  Yes. Dean can have anything.

Dean still doesn’t squeeze, but he taps Castiel’s neck with his index finger.  “In.”

Castiel breathes in, until Dean taps again.  “Stop.” He stops.

“Out.”  He releases.  

“So good for me,” Dean praises, and rubs his finger over Castiel’s prostate during the outbreath.  Castiel opens his mouth to moan, but Dean stops him with another tap. “Stop.” And he stops, though he chokes on the moan and it bottles up inside him.

“So good,” Dean praises again, and adds another finger.  He fucks them in and out, nice and slow, spreading around the wet mess from his mouth and the magic lube from his fingers.

He doesn't make Castiel wait for breath.  “In. Stop. Out. Stop. In…” he says, voice steady as the iron of his concentration can make it, while his finger rubs and stretches inside of Castiel.   _ In, stop, out, stop, in _ , Dean doesn’t squeeze Castiel’s throat or make him hold his breath too long.  He knows the cadence of Castiel’s breath and that is the cadence that he gives.  When he says “Stop,” Castiel stops, trusting that Dean will give him air again.

For Castiel it feels… natural. Easy.  Too easy, maybe, too easy, to submit even his  _ breath _ to an immortal demon king.  He, who used to belong to the Lord God.  But Castiel sinks down deep into it, until he doesn’t really hear the words Dean is saying any more than he hears the beat of his own heart.  He feels good. He feels light. He  _ is  _ light _.   _ He shifts minutely against his chains.  His skin feels so good, on his body.

“Stop,” Dean says, and Dean’s cock slams into him, filling him up.  He spasms in his chains, but he doesn’t breathe.

“Ssssh, shhh, angel, ssshhh, stop.  Stop stop stop,” Dean says, one hand still around Castiel’s throat, the other combing into his hair.  He still doesn't press or choke, Castiel could breathe if he wanted to but… He doesn't want to. He gave his breath to Dean.  He wants it to be Dean's. He wants  _ everything _ to be Dean’s.   _ He _ wants to be Dean’s.  

He feels his face turn red.  His head was already light, empty of everything but Dean's voice, but now it grows even lighter.  

Dean traces a finger around Castiel's throat.  “So perfect for me, angel.” He waits just one second more, and then says  “Breathe.”

Castiel's new grace ignites, what seems like it was only a spark before roaring out now into the real conflagration; every one of his veins aflame.  He cannot tell if it ignited to save him from suffocating or because Dean commanded him to breathe and gave it life, but it ignites and burns him all the same.  He is an angel again now, he is sure of it. An angel of the damned, belonging only to Dean. Fallen, he is Risen again.

He screams and comes, his new grace disintegrating his gag so that he can scream Dean's name.  That is his right of worship, now, and no scrap of fabric can keep him from it.

Dean does not come.  Somehow, Dean holds on, one hand around the back of Castiel’s neck, the other arm wrapped around Castiel’s shoulder, bracing himself tightly inside Castiel.  Castiel has gone limp in his arms but he keeps fucking him, he a steam coal train and Castiel a toy, wet and opened up wide and sloppy. Castiel is barely conscious and his lips can’t mount the words, but he can think them so that Dean can hear them:   _ Don’t stop, Master.  Use me. Please. Let me serve you.   _

Dean throbs inside him.  He comes, and comes, and comes-- he holds Castiel’s shoulders and looks up at the sky and a vein rises in his neck and he  _ groans _ as he pumps in and fills Castiel up.  Then he thrusts into Castiel one last time, as hard and deep as he can, and collapses, a dead weight over Castiel’s body.  Castiel thinks he hears Dean whisper, on a shaky breath:  _ Mine.  My angel. _

Dean collapsed on top of him and breathing shallowly, Castiel’s wings blink in, out, in, out.  He has a halo, too, made of shadow and static and thorns. The pocked iron blade appears in his hand, disappears, appears again, with the rhythm of his wings, a static shudder.  His choir sings the sound of dark waves rolling over the sand and they pull his mind away. He does not need sleep anymore, he knows, but he lets the waves put him into a trance, and waits for Dean to come back to him, so that he can serve him again.

 

*****

Dean recovers slowly.  When he first opens his eyes, he is soft but still inside Castiel.  He is sticky, and itchy. He feels like he fucked away half of his life.  

Castiel’s eyes are three quarters lidded over, but Dean can see lightning flashes through the slim opening at the bottom.  His face looks unreal, flickering like that. Dean has not seen this before, but does not want to wake Castiel, or disturb him from his meditation or whatever, so he climbs off carefully, and goes to wash himself with warm water in their shower.

He returns with the beaten copper basin, filled with steaming water and citrus oil, and a soft towel.  He notices, then, that Castiel is still chained. He feels an ink slick of guilt. He shouldn’t have fallen asleep without unchaining Castiel, even if he fucked away three-quarters of his life.  

He reaches out to release Castiel’s right wrist, and Castiel’s eyes open with a snap.  “No,” he says. His voice is hoarse from screaming, but it is steady and certain. He does not want to be unchained.  

Dean understands. His prize wants to be kept.  Dean wants to keep him, but to keep him he has to care for him.  That is why the towel, that is why the scented oil. “Don’t worry, angel.  I’m gonna keep you. Gonna give you everything you want, I told you.” He looks down at his hands, holding the towel.  “But I gotta take care of you, too.”

Castiel releases a held breath, and his eyes lid over again.  “Yes, Master. Whatever you want.”

Dean touches the chain he reached out to, and turns it from iron to gold.  He lets it grow longer, so that Castiel’s arm is not stretched out, anymore, and he does release the other three chains.  In their place, a gold collar appears around Castiel’s throat. The Mark of Cain is etched in bronze at its front, and it is decorated the rest of the way around with short, sharp, golden spikes.   _ Property of the Master.  Do not touch.  _ It is padded on the inside with tawny suede, though this is not visible from the outside.  A thick, golden, chain, attaches at the back and then again to a mount in the base of the bed’s headboard.  

Castiel fingers the collar that has appeared around his neck.  The spikes are sharp like needles, but he does not press them hard enough to prick.  He likes it, that they are dangerous-- golden and sharp. Like Dean. Like his Master.  

This collar would not hold him for a moment, if he brought out his pure white wings and beat them, or if he touched it with his new-grace.  But it is not the collar that is holding him. It is himself. He wants to be held.

“Beautiful,” Dean says, dipping his towel into the citrus water.  His angel collared and chained with heavy gold, covered with come and sweat and saliva, his hair a ransacked mess, his eyes lidded over.  

“For you, Master,” Castiel says, like sex.

Dean cleans him off carefully, slowly, hands on Castiel’s body longer than they need to be to only clean him,  _ shaking _ with his reverence for this beauty.  He kisses the bite marks on Castiel’s collarbones softly when they are clean, and tastes the citrus on his skin.  He touches every one of the marks on Castiel’s body with feather fingertips-- and there are many. Castiel came too hard and too long to get hard again from these snowflake-touches, but they make him feel lighter, lighter, inside.  

Dean cares for him so well, he thinks, eyes closed, feeling every touch Dean gives him.  Dean gives him such beautiful bruises, and touches them like they are so sacred, afterwards.  Dean gives him a beautiful collar, that shows who he belongs to, who and how powerful and how dangerous.  Dean chains him with heavy links of gold, so he knows that Dean wants to keep him, right here, his, his own.  “Master,” he says, voice breaking, so grateful.

“What do you need, beauty?”  Dean asks, all concern and solicitiousness.  He kept the tremor, the adoration, out of his voice so well when he accepted Castiel’s obedience and rose over him in dominion, but he cannot keep it away now.  “Let me give you what you need. Please.” He sits down on the side of the bed, where he can reach all of Castiel.

“Thirsty,” Castiel says, blurrily, rasped out voice.

“Then drink from me,” Dean says, and holds his first two fingers to Castiel’s lips.  Castiel takes them inside, and suckles them. Cranberry juice from the first finger, water from the second, both ice cold.  He holds Dean’s wrist to his face, so he can drink. Dean takes care of him, so well.

“Can you talk to me?”  Dean asks, free hand combing through Castiel’s wild hair, smoothing it down.  Castiel nods, but keeps drinking the juice from Dean’s finger. He is so thirsty.  Dean fucked him dry.

“Do you always feel... like that?”  Dean asks, so quiet Castiel can barely hear him.  “Like you want me to...I knew, sometimes that’s what you wanted, but feeling it through the naming bond it was so… Deep.  What you wanted, it ran so deep. Like you  _ need  _ it.  Like you want it always.”   _ And I didn't give it to you, I was so selfish, I… _

Castiel tongues off of Dean's fingers, but keeps hold of his wrist, keeps his hand close to his face so he can suckle it again in a moment.  “Always a little bit. Only sometimes like  _ that,”  _ and guides Dean's fingers back to his mouth, pink tongue.

Dean nods, still combing his other hand through Castiel's hair.  Until Castiel speaks again.

“I want what you said.  For you to chain me to the bed and blind me, deafen me, and fuck me that way.  I want to feel you come inside me and scream so hard but I can't hear it, and feel the tears hot on my cheeks.  I want that.” He takes Dean’s fingers back into his mouth.

“If you want it, angel,” Dean says, so softly for what he is agreeing to.  “I want what  _ you _ said.  To take your grace from your halo.  To have you inside me, that way.”

Castiel nods.  They are silent for a moment, since Castiel is still drinking.  Dean stares idly at the fireplace, and the swirl of smoke spiraling up out of the incense on the mantle.  

“I never took your breath before.”  He doesn’t feel… guilty, quite, because he  _ knows _ how much Castiel wanted it, but he also doesn’t feel… right, about it.  Like he should not be proud that he had the most beautiful angel chained there beneath him, and he still had to take more.  

“You didn’t take it.  I gave it.” Castiel replies, and lets go of Dean’s hand, belly full and sloshing with liquid.

“Would you want me to take it again?”

Castiel thinks about it.

“I am glad you took it, that time.  But it wasn’t what I liked the most.”

“What did you like the most?”  

“You, the black eyes, the horns, the chains.  Like I really am this angel and you really did steal me away to keep for your own.”

“You are.  I did.” The oil in Dean’s eyes ripples and his horns spiral out of his head and curl in on themselves a millimeter more.  He pulls Castiel towards him, and holds him in close to his body, arms and then wings wrapped around him tightly. “Am gonna keep you.  Always. I promise.”

“Yes, Master.”

  
  


*****

 

“The fire was out,” Dean says, some time later, a non sequitur.  

“You put it out, Master,” Castiel replies, thinking that Dean means ‘the fire was out when we returned from the plane of fire.”  

But that’s not what Dean means.  “No, I mean… it was out when I let go of your neck, and started searching for Uriel’s halo.  It was out… it had been out for a long time. It was cold. There were no embers.”

This explanation does not help-- Castiel still does not understand why Dean is talking about this at all, let alone why his voice sounds… worried?  

“How long do you think we were… you know… you know.”  

Then Castiel does understand, in a crash.  How long did they lay together and fall through their memories?  The siege lasted a year; they were in North Dakota and the empty place for… months, at least.  Had they been lying there holding each other for that long when they stirred to unmake Uriel? How long did it take to experience those memories?  They  _ felt  _ like they were really happening, all all over again.  Did they really take that long? Longer? Shorter? How would they  _ know?   _

The fire  _ was _ out.  

“Sam,” Dean says, and disappears.  

In the panicked void Dean left behind, Castiel realizes:  

He has not told Dean that he is fully angel again.  He should tell Dean this information right away. He should not keep this information from Dean, it is too important.

Sam may be… in a bad state.  If he has been left alone to rot in his cell for months with no food, no care.  Sam may be in a bad state. If he is, Castiel’s powers may be of more use than Dean’s-- for healing a human an angel, even a fallen one, should be stronger than a demon.

His white wings appear in a flourish and he raises them, and vacates his chains.  But then he realizes, also, that he cannot go to Sam in his present state. Naked.  Covered with bruises, and bite marks. He has made that mistake before.

He lowers his wings.  He does not want to heal his marks.  He likes them. They mean he is Dean’s.  He likes to be able to feel them, throbbing on his skin.

He decides to cover them, instead.  First, with his white angel’s garment, long sleeved, golden belted.  But he doesn’t feel right, wearing that. That is what he wore when he was an angel of the Lord, and he played a harp on a cloud and waited for Gabriel to bring him honeyed candy from the Egyptian river towns.

He flicks his wrist and instead he has the black jeans that he and Dean wear in the Pit hanging low on his hips again.  A black tshirt. Thick gold bands to hide the bruises on his wrists; they remind him of his manacles. He keeps his collar, even though it obscures Dean's Name on his neck.  

He stands from the bed.  Clothed in black, wings perfect, pure white behind him.  Dark static halo crackling above his fuck me hair. Golden collar.  Blue eyes. They flash once.

He steps forward, to fly.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The breathplay: Dean holds his hand on Castiel's neck and asks Castiel if he can take Castiel's breath. Castiel assents. Dean doesn't choke him, physically or magically, but rather tells him with words when he can breathe and when he can't. Castiel complies. They discuss it afterwards.

**Works inspired by this one:**

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